j}^^}^'- 


CATHOLIC      ' 
BOOKSELLER, 

Boston. 


1^.. 


p.c.fcaiY 
nmiNo/^ii,  MASS 


THE    IRISH -AMERICAN    LIBRARY. 

^^OL.    I. 

English  Misiee  in  Ireland, 

A    COUnSE   OF  LECTURES, 


DEUVERED    BY    THE 


Very  Rev.  THOMAS  N.  BURKE,  O.P., 


IN  KEPLT  TO 


TAMES  ANTHONY  FROUDE,  Esq. 


toitl)  an  ^ppeubi^, 


CONTAIKING  A  EEVIEW  OF  THE   SO-CAT.T.ED  "BITLI,"  OP  ADRIAN   IV.,  BY   THE   MOST 

EEV.   P.   H.   MORAN,   BISHOP  OF  OSSORY ;    AND   "AN  ANALYSIS  OF  THE 

REBELLION  OF  1641,"  BY  MATHEW  CAREY. 


BOSTON  COLLKG¥.  T.IBHMIY 
CHESTNUT  HILL,  MASS. 


JV£IV  YORK: 

LYNCH,  COLE  &  MEEHAN,  57  MTIERAT  STREET, 

1873. 


Bntebed  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  Year  1872,  by 
LYNCH,  COLE  &  MEEHAN, 

IN  THE  OrnCE  OF  THE  LIBRARIAN  OF  CONGRESS,   AT  WASHINGTON, 


Poole  &  Maclauchi.an, 

frinters  and  bookbjwueks, 

305-213  East  i2t/i  Si, 


u 

INTRODUCTION 


The  idea  of  an  "  Ikish-Ameeican  Library,"  similar  to  tlia 
*•  Library  of  Ireland,"  which  Davis  originated  for  his  and  our  native 
land,  suggested  itself  to  us  many  years  ago,  and  vp-ould  have  been 
put  into  practical  execution  before  now,  but  that  circumstances  did 
not  permit  us  to  subtract  from  other  and  more  pressing  duties  the 
time  and  personal  attention  that  were  required  to  make  the  experi- 
ment not  only  successful,  but  worthy  of  the  National  idea  it  would 
represent.  The  necessity  of  some  such  collection  of  works  relating 
to  our  people, — in  their  connection  with  their  native  and  adopted 
countries, — has,  however,  never  been  absent  from  our  mind.  And 
recent  events  have  so  strongly  demonstrated  the  urgency  of  that 
need,  that  our  resolution  was  at  once  taken  to  do  what  lay  in  our 
power  to  supply  the  want,  and  at  least  to  make  a  beginning  of  what 
may  hereafter  be  a  work  of  some  consequence  to  our  people  in  this 
New  World.  The  Lrish-American  element,  at  the  present  day,  in 
this  Republic,  is  second  to  no  other  in  importance  as  a  component 
portion  of  the  community.  Its  status  in  the  history  of  the  coun- 
try, from  the  earliest  dates  of  which  we  have  any  authentic  or  reli- 
able records,  has  never  been  insignificant  Yet,  with  the  exception 
of  two  volumes  (both  the  work  of  men  who,  however  able,  were 
very  imperfectly  acquainted  with  the  subjects  on  which  they 
treated),  we  have  met  no  work  that  even  pretended  to  deal  with  the 
connection  of  the  Irish  race  with  this  Republic,  or  preserve  to  futurity 
the  record  of  what  Irish- Americans  have  done,  and  are  doiag,  for 
the  advancement  of  the  land  in  which  so  many  of  them  have 
found  citizenship  and  hospitable  welcome.  Yet  this  deficiency  does 
not  spring  from  lack  of  material  fit  for  authentic  history.  Probably 
no  other  portion  of  the  commimity  possesses  a  richer  store  of  materials 
for  a  creditable  history  than  can»^|M:adiujed  by  the  Irish  branch  of 


4  INTRODUCTION'. 

the  great  Celtic  family,  which  has  been  transplanted  to  this  North 
American  Continent.  But,  Tinf  ortunately,  this  mass  of  inf  ormatioa, — 
invaluable  to  us  as  an  essential  portion  of  our  title-deeds  to  the  cit- 
izenship of  the  United  States, — has  lain  undeveloped  and  unused; 
hidden  away  in  family  records,  or  only  finding  access  to  the  light  in 
the  uncei-tain  and  perishable  form  of  newspaper  publications.  The 
knowledge  of  many  important  facts  relating  to  the  share  which 
Irishmen  and  their  immediate  descendants  have  had  in  the  estab- 
lishment of  this  RepubUc.  and  its  subsequent  progress  to  prosperity 
and  greatness  as  a  nation,  is  rapidly  passing  away  with  the  men  of 
the  last  generation,  who  were  familiar  with  the  story.  And  it  is 
only  occasionally,  when  some  accidental  circumstance  elicits  a  detail 
of  those  facts,  that  the  world  is  apprised  how,  in  one  of  the  greatest 
revolutions  by  which  the  political  relations  of  human  society  have 
ever  been  influenced,  the  children  of  that  little  island  in  the  far-off 
ocean,  which  England  has  been  so  assiduously,  but  vainly,  endeavor- 
ing to  shut  out  from  the  gaze  of  manldnd,  played  an  important  part, 
and  left  their  mark  worthily  upon  the  past  of  their  adopted  country. 
As  an  instance  of  the  historical  losses  to  which  we  have  been  liable 
from  the  want  of  any  permanent  form  of  record  apiDertaining  to  our 
people  in  this  country,  we  may  cite  the  writings  and  speeches  of  the 
adopted  son  of  the  great  Washington — the  late  GtEORGE  WAsnmG- 
TON  Parke  Custis.  That  eminent  gentleman, — one  of  the  best 
representatives  of  that  generation, — the  first-bom  of  the  Republic, — 
whose  i^atriotism,  genius,  and  high  integrity  made  the  American 
name  illustrious,  and  compelled  the  resj)ect  and  admiration  of  even 
hostile  critics, — that  eminent  gentleman  thought  so  highly  of  our 
people,  for  the  share  they  had  taken  in  the  emancipation  of  his 
native  land,  that  he  lost  no  oppoi-tunity  of  giving  expression 
to  his  favorable  opinion;  and,  in  his  latter  days,  he  claimed  as 
one  of  his  most  cherished  titles,  that  by  which  he  had  distin- 
guished himself  as  "  The  Old  Orator  of  Ireland."  Yet  in  his  Biog- 
raphy (published  some  years  since,  by  one  of  his  surviving  descend- 
ants) not  one  word  is  mentioned  of  all  that  he  has  said  or  written  in 
behalf  of  the  country  and  the  people  in  whose  fate  he  took  so  deep 
an  interest ;  and  for  the  testimony  which  he  so  nobly  bears  to  the 
part  played  by  the  Irish,  in  the  great  struggle  for  the  independence 
of  these  States,  we  are  indebted  to  the  columns  of  an  extinct  and 
almost  forgotten  journal,  and  to  the  painstaking  care  and  research 
of  aiDatriotic  Irish- American,  Michael  Hennessy,  Esq.,  of  Brook- 


INTRODUCTION.  5 

lyn,  who,  with  a  zeal  and  perseverance  that  merit  the  graleful 
recognition  of  his  fellow-countrjTnen,  has  collected  and  made  a  rail- 
able  a  vast  amount  of  references  and  authorities,  which,  to  the 
student  of  Irish  history,  are  invaluable,  and  in  this  country  would 
be  unattamable,  were  it  not  for  the  excellent  literary  taste  and  i?a- 
triotic  spirit  which  impelled  Mr.  Hennessy  to  devote  himself  to  the 
congenial  work  of  concentrating  and  preserving  them. 

There  are  many  interesting  narratives  now  existing  in  no  more 
permanent  form  than  that  of  an  occasional  newspaper  file,  or 
''  scrap-book,"  that  would  in  a  few  years,  perhaps,  be  of  the 
highest  value  to  the  descendants  of  the  men  by  whom  those  events 
of  history  have  been  acted  out.  To  rescue  from  oblivion,  and  place 
within  the  reach  of  all  our  people,  as  much  as  possible  of  those  rec- 
ords relating  to  our  race  in  this  hemisphere,  shall  be  the  mission  of 
"•  The  Irish- American  Lebrary."  There  are  also  many  splendid 
contributions,  of  oratory,  song,  and  poetic  fiction,  %vith  which  Irish 
genius  has  enriched  the  hterature  of  America ;  and  with  some  of 
these  we  design,  also,  to  lighten,  and,  as  it  were,  beautify,  the  dryer 
but  more  important  details  of  current  history.  The  successive  vol- 
umes of  the  "  Library  "  shall  be  issued  as  rapidly  as  the  matter  com- 
prising them  can  be  properly  collated  and  arranged. 

In  selecting  for  the  first  issue  of  this  series  the  lectures  of  Father 
Burke  in  refutation  of  the  sophistries  of  the  EngUsh  historian 
Froude,  we  have  been  influenced  not  merely  by  the  intrinsic  merit 
and  beauty  of  those  discourses,  and  their  value  as  a  defence  of  our 
national  character,  but  also  by  the  consideration  of  that  tendency  of 
the  American  mind  which  impels  it  to  deal  immediately  and  directly 
with  what  is  ^reseiit^  and  to  leave  the  remote  past  for  more  leisurely 
consideration.  The  value  of  these  lectures,  both  as  a  defence  of 
our  people  against  a  most  flagrant  attack,  and  as  a  future  source  of 
reference  in  relation  to  many  important  portions  of  our  history,  will 
be  materially  enhanced  by  the  Appendix  which  we  have  added,  and 
which  contains  aU  the  most  authentic  historical  quotations  relating 
to  the  matters  which  Mr.  Froude  has  so  artfully  misrepresented  or 
mystified. 

The  importance  and  reliability  of  these  historical  notes  may  be 
judged  from  the  fact,  that  it  was  from  the  works  from  which  they 
are  extracted  (most  of  which  have  long  been  out  of  print,)  O'Con- 
nell  principally  composed  his  celebrated  "Memoir  on  Ireland," 
which  has  since  been  a  hand-book  for  Irish  national  reference.     We 


e  INTRODUCTION, 

have  endeavored  to  place  those  portions  of  them  which  bear  upon 
the  subject-matter  of  the  Froude  controversy  in  the  shape  most 
available  for  the  general  mass  of  readers,  who  may  not  have  leisure 
or  opportunity  to  hunt  up  these  references  for  themselves ;  in  which 
view  they  add  materially  to  the  value  of  the  work ;  and  may,  per- 
haps, be  productive  of  further  good  by  stimulating  some  readers  to 
a  more  careful  study  of  the  facts  of  Irish  history, — a  correct  know- 
ledge of  which  is  so  essential  in  repelling  attacks  on  our  national 
reputation,  such  as  that  projected  by  our  latest  English  assailant, 
and  so  happily  met  and  defeated  by  the  great  Irish  Dominican. 


ENGLISH  MISEULE  IN  lEELAM). 


FIEST  LECTURE. 

(Delivered  in  the  Academy  of  MtmCy  New  Tork^  Nov.  12,  1873.) 

NORMAN   INVASION   AND    MISRULE. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen:  It  is  a  strange  fact  that  the 
old  battle  that  has  been  raging  for  seven  hundi^ed  years 
should  continue  so  far  away  from  the  old  land.  The  ques- 
tion on  which  I  am  come  to  speak  to  you  this  evening  is 
one  that  has  been  disputed  at  many  a  council  board — one 
that  has  been  disputed  in  many  a  Parliament,  one  that  has 
been  disputed  on  many  a  well-fought  field,  and  is  not  yet  de- 
cided— the  question  between  England  and  Ireland.  Among 
the  visitors  to  America,  who  came  over  this  year,  there  was 
one  gentleman,  distinguished  in  Europe  for  his  style  of  writ- 
ing, and  for  his  historical  knowledge, — the  author  of  several 
works,  which  have  created  a  profound  sensation,  at  least  for 
their  originality.  Mr.  Froude  has  frankly  stated  that  he 
came  over  to  this  country  to  deal  with  England  and  the 
Irish  question,  viewing  it  from  an  English  standpoint ;  that, 
like  a  true  man,  he  came  to  make  the  best  case  that  he 
could  for  his  own  country ;  that  he  came  to  state  that  case 


8  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

to  the  American  public,  as  to  a  grand  jury,  and  to  demand 
a  verdict  from  them,  the  most  extraordinary  that  ever  yet 
Tvas  demanded  of  any  people, — namely,  a  declaration  that 
England  was  right  in  the  manner  in  which  she  has  treated 
my  native  land  for  seven  hundred  years. 

It  seems,  according  to  this  learned  gentleman,  that  we 
Irish  have  been  badly  treated  (that  he  confesses)  ;  but  he 
puts  in  as  a  plea  that  we  only  got  what  we  deserved.  It  is 
true,  he  says,  that  we  have  governed  them  badly  ;  the  reason 
is,  becaus'e  it  was  impossible  to  govern  them  rightly.  It  is 
true  that  we  have  robbed  them  ;  the  reason  is,  because  it  was  a 
pity  to  leave  them  their  own, — they  made  such  a  bad  use  of 
it.  It  is  true  that  we  have  persecuted  them  ;  the  reason  is, 
persecution  was  the  fashion  of  the  time  and  the  order  of  the 
day.  On  these  pleas  there  is  not  a  criminal  in  prison  to- 
day, in  the  United  States,  that  should  not  immediately  get 
his  freedom  by  acknowledging  his  crime,  and  pleading  some 
extenuating  circumstances. 

Our  ideas  about  Ireland  have  been  all  wrong,  it  seems. 
Seven  hundred  years  ago,  the  exigencies  of  the  time  de- 
manded the  foundation  of  a  strong  British  empire.  In 
order  to  do  this,  Ireland  had  to  be  conquered ;  and  Ireland 
was  conquered.  Since  that  time  (according  to  Mr.  Froude,) 
the  one  ruling  idea  in  the  Eno;lish  mind  has  been  to  do  all 
the  good  they  could  to  the  Irish.  Their  legislation  and 
their  action  have  not  been  always  tender,  but  they  were  al- 
ways beneficent ;  they  were  sometimes  severe ;  but  they  were 
severe  to  us  for  our  own  good :  and  the  difficulty  of  England 
has  been,  that  the  Irish,  during  all  these  long  hundreds  of 
years,  have  never  imderstood  their  own  interests,  nor  known 
what  was  for  their  own  good !  N'ow,  the  American  mind  is 
enlightened ;  and  henceforth  no  Irishman  must  complain  of 
the  past  in  this  new  light  in  which  Mr.  Froude  puts  it  be- 
fore us ;  and  the  amiable  gentleman  tells  us,  moreover,  that, 


NOBMAN  INVASION  AND  MISRULE.  9 

what  has  been  our  fate  in  the  past,  he  greatly  fears  we  must 
reconcile  ourselves  to  in  the  future. 

Mr.  Froude  comes  to  tell  us  his  version  of  the  history  of 
Ireland,  and  he  also  comes  to  solve  Ireland's  difficulty,  and 
to  lead  us  out  of  all  the  miseries  that  have  been  our  history 
for  hundreds  of  years.  When  he  came,  many  persons  ques- 
tioned what  was  the  reason  or  motive  of  his  coming.  I 
have  heard  people  speaking  all  around  me,  assigning  to  the 
learned  gentleman  this  motive  or  that.  Some  persons  said 
he  was  an  emissary  of  the  English  Government ;  that  they 
sent  him  here  because  they  were  beginning  to  be  afraid  of 
the  rising  power  of  Ireland  in  this  great  nation ;  that  they 
saw  here  eight  millions  of  Irishmen  by  birth,  and  perhaps 
fourteen  millions  Irish  by  immediate  descent;  they  knew 
enough  of  the  Irish  to  know  that  the  Almighty  God  blessed 
them  always  with  an  extraordinary  power,  not  only  to  pre- 
serve themselves,  but  to  spread  themselves ;  and  that,  in  a 
few  years,  not  fourteen,  but  fifty  millions  of  Irish  blood  and 
of  the  Irish  race  would  be  in  this  land.  According  to  those 
who  thus  surmised,  England  wants  to  check  the  sympathy  of 
the  American  people  for  their  Irish  fellow-citizens ;  and  it 
was  considered  that  the  best  way  to  effect  this  was  to  send 
a  learned  man  with  a  plausible  story  to  this  country, — a  man 
with  a  singular  power  of  viewing  facts  in  the  light  in  which 
he  wished  himself  to  view  them,  and  in  that  light  to  put 
them  before  others; — a  man  mth  an  extraordinary  power 
of  so  mixing  up  these  facts,  that  many  simple-minded  peo- 
ple will  look  upon  them  as  he  puts  them  before  them  ;  and 
whose  mission  it  was  to  alienate  the  mind  of  America  from 
Ireland  to-day,  by  showing  what  an  impracticable,  obstinate, 
accursed  race  we  are. 

Others,  again,  surmised  that  the  learned  gentleman  came 
for  another  purpose.  They  said  :  "  England  is  in  the  hour 
of  her  weakness ;  she  is  tottering  fast,  and  visibly,  to  her 


10  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

ruin.  The  disruption  of  that  old  empire  is  visibly  approach  - 
ing.  She  is  to-day  cut  off,  without  an  ally  in  Europe;. 
Her  army  is  a  cipher;  her  fleet — according  to  Mr.  Heed, 
the  best  authority  on  this  great  question — is  nothing  to  be 
compared  with  the  rival  fleet  of  the  great  Russian  power 
that  is  growing  up  beside  her.  With  France  paralyzed  by 
her  late  defeat,  England  lost  her  best  ally.  The  three  Em- 
perors, the  other  day,  they  said,  contemptuously  ignored  her, 
and  settled  the  affairs  of  the  world  without  as  much  as  men- 
tioning the  name  of  that  kingdom  that  was  once  so  powerful. 
Her  resources  of  coal  and  iron  are  failing ;  her  peoj)le  are 
discontented ;  and  she  shows  every  sign  of  decay."  Thus  did 
some  persons  argue  that  England  was  anxious  for  an  Ameri- 
can alliance;  for  they  said:  "What  would  be  more  natural 
than  that  the  old  and  tottering  empire  should  wish  to  lean 
upon  the  strong,  mighty,  vigorous  young  arm  of  America?  " 

I  have  heard  others  say  that  the  gentleman  came  over  on 
the  invitation  of  a  little  clique  of  sectarian  bigots  in  this 
country ;  men  who, — feeling  that  the  night  of  religious  big- 
otry and  sectarian  bitterness  is  fast  coming  to  a  close  before 
the  increasing  light  of  American  intelligence  and  education, 
— would  fain  prolong  the  darkness  by  an  hour  or  two,  by 
whatever  help  Mr.  Froude  could  lend  them.  But  I  protest 
to  you,  gentlemen,  to-night,  that  1  have  heard  all  these  mo- 
tives assigned  to  this  learned  man,  without  giving  them  the 
least  attention.  I  believe  Mr.  Froude's  motives  to  be  sim- 
ple, straightforward,  and  patriotic.  I  am  willing  to  give 
him  credit  for  the  highest  motives  ;  and  I  consider  him  per- 
fectly incapable  of  lending  himself  to  any  base  or  sordid 
proceeding,  from  a  base  or  sordid  motive. 

But,  as  the  learned  gentleman's  motives  have  been  so 
freely  criticised,  and,  I  believe,  in  many  cases  misinter- 
preted, so,  my  own  motives  in  coming  here  to-night,  to  an- 
swer him,  may,  perhaps,  be  misinterpreted  or  misunderstood, 


JVOMMAN  INVASION  AND  MISRULE.  \\ 

unless  I  state  tliem  clearly  and  plainly.  As  he  is  said  to 
come  as  an  emissary  of  the  English  Government,  I  may  be 
said  to  appear  here,  perhaps,  as  an  emissary  of  rebellion  or 
revolution.  As  he  is  supposed  by  some  to  have  the  sinister 
motive  of  alienating  the  American  mind  from  the  Irish  cit- 
izenship of  these  States,  so  I  may  be  suspected  of  endeav- 
oring to  excite  religious  or  political  hatred.  Now,  I  protest 
that  these  are  not  my  motives.  I  come  here  to-night,  sim- 
ply to  vindicate  the  honor  of  Ireland  and  her  history.  I 
come  here  to-night  lest  any  man  should  think  that,  in  this 
our  day, — or  in  any  day, — Ireland  is  to  be  left  without  a  son 

who  will  speak  for  the  mother  that  bore  him 

.  .  .  .  And  I  hold  that  Mr.  Froude  is  unfit  for  the  task 
which  he  has  undertaken,  for  three  great  reasons.  First  of 
all,  because  I  find,  in  the  writings  of  tliis  learned  gentleman, 
that  he  solemnly  and  emphatically  declares  that  he  despairs 
of  ever  finding  a  remedy  for  the  evils  of  Ireland,  and  that 
he  gives  it  up  as  a  bad  job.  Here  are  his  words,  written  in 
one  of  his  essays  a  few  years  ago  : 

"  The  present  hope  is  that  by  assiduous  justice,  that  is  to 
say,  by  conceding  everything  that  the  Irish  please  to  ask,  we 
shall  disarm  their  enmity,  and  convince  them  of  our  good 
will.  It  may  be  so.  There  are  j^ersons  sanguine  enough 
to  hope  that  the  Irish  will  be  so  moderate  in  what  they  de- 
mand, and  the  English  so  liberal  in  what  they  will  grant, 
that  at  last  we  shall  fling  ourselves  into  each  other's  arms, 
in  tears  and  mutual  forgiveness.  I  do  not  share  that  expec- 
tation. It  is  more  likely  that  they  will  push  their  imj)ortu- 
nities,  till  at  last  we  turn  upon  them,  and  refuse  to  yield 
further.  There  will  be  a  struggle  once  more  ;  and  either  the 
emigration  to  America  wdll  go  on,  increasing  in  voluDie  till 
it  has  carried  the  en-tire  race  beyond  our  reach,  or,  in  some 
shape  or  other,  they  will  again  have  to  he  coerced  into  sub- 
mission.^'' 

Banish  them  or  coerce  them !     There  is  the  true  English* 


12  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IBELAND. 

man  speaking  !  My  only  remedy,  lie  empliatically  saj^s,  my 
only  hope,  my  only  prospect  of  a  future  for  Ireland  is,  let 
them  go  to  America :  have  done  with  the  race  altogether, 
and  give  us  Ireland,  at  last,  such  as  we  have  labored  to 
make  it  for  seven  hundred  years — a  desert  and  a  solitude. 
Or,  if  they  remain  at  home,  they  will  have  to  be  coerced 
into  submission.  I  hold,  that  that  man  has  no  right  to  come  to 
America,  to  tell  the  American  people,  or  the  Irish  in  Amer- 
ica, that  he  can  describe  the  horoscope  of  Ireland's  future. 
He  ought  to  be  ashamed  to  do  it,  after  uttering  such  words 
as  those. 

The  second  reason  why  I  say  he  is  unfit  for  the  task  of 
describing  Irish  history,  is  because  of  his  contempt  for  the 
Irish  people.  The  original  sin  of  the  Englishman  has  ever 
been  his  contempt  for  the  Irish.  It  lies  deep,  though  dor- 
mant, in  the  heart  of  almost  every  Englishman.  The  aver- 
age Englishman  despises  the  Irishman,  and  looks  down  upon 
him  as  a  being  almost  inferior  in  nature.  Now,  I  speak  not 
from  prejudice,  but  from  an  intercourse  of  years,  for  I  have 
lived  among  them.  I  have  known  Englishmen, — amiable, 
gentle,  religious,  charming  characters, — who  would  not,  for 
the  whole  world,  wilfully  nourish  in  their  hearts  a  feeling  of 
contempt  for  any  one — much  less  express  it  in  words  :  and 
yet  I  have  seen  even  these  manifest  in  a  thousand  forms  that 
contempt  for  the  Irish  which  seems  to  be  a  part  of  their  very 
nature.  I  am  sorry  to  say  that,  in  respect  to  this  feeling,  I 
can  make  no  exception  of  Catholic  or  Protestant  among  the 
English.  I  mention  this  not  to  excite  animosity,  not  to  create 
bad  blood  or  bitter  feeling.  No  :  I  protest  this  is  not  my 
meaning.  But  I  mention  this  because  I  am  convinced  it  lies 
at  the  very  root  of  that  antipathy  and  hatred  between  the 
English  and  Irish,  which  seems  to  be  incurable.  And  I 
verily  believe,  that,  until  that  feeling  is  destroyed,  you  never 
can  have  a  cordial  union  between  the  two  countries ;  and 


NORMAN  INVASION  AND  MISRULE.  13 

the  only  way  to  destroy  it  is  to  raise  Ireland,  so  by  justice 
and  by  home  legislation,  that  her  people  will  attain  to  such 
a  position,  as  to  enforce  and  command  the  respect  of  their 
English  fellow-citizens. 

Mr.  Froude,  himself  (who,  I  am  sure,  is  incapable  of  any 
ungenerous  sentiment,  towards  any  man,  or  any  people,)  is 
an  actual  living  example  of  that  feeling  of  contempt  of 
which  I  speak.  In  November,  1865,  this  learned  gentleman 
addressed  a  Scottish  assembly,  in  Edinburgh.  The  subject 
of  his  address  was  the  effect  of  the  Protestant  Keformation 
upon  the  Scottish  character.  According  to  him,  it  made 
the  Scots  the  finest  people  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  Origi- 
nally fine,  they  never  got  the  last  touch, — that  made  them, 
as  it  were,  archangels  among  men, — until  the  holy  hand  of 
John  Knox  touched  them.  On  that  occasion  the  learned 
gentleman  introduced  himself  to  his  Scottish  audience  in 
the  following  w^ords : — 

"  I  have  undertaken  to  speak,  this  evening,  on  the  eftects 
of  the  Reformation  in  Scotland,  and  I  consider  myself  a 
very  bold  person  to  have  come  here  on  any  such  undertaking. 
In  the  first  place,  the  subject  is  one  with  which  it  is  pre- 
sumptuous for  a  stranger  to  meddle.  Great  national  move- 
ments can  only  be  understood  properly  by  the  people  whose 
disposition  they  represent.  We  say,  ourselves,  about  our 
own  history,  that  only  Englishmen  can  properly  comprehend 
it.  It  is  the  same  with  every  considerable  nation.  They 
work  out  their  own  political  and  spiritual  lives  through 
tempers,  humors,  and  j^assions  peculiar  to  themselves :  and 
the  same  disposition  which  produces  the  result  is  required 
to  interpret  it  afterwards." 

Did  the  learned  gentleman  offer  any  such  apology  for 
entering  so  boldly  on  the  discussion  of  Irish  afi'airs  ?  Oh, 
no  !  There  was  no  apology  necessary.  He  was  going  to 
speak  only  of  the  "mere  Irish."  There  was  no  word  to 
e:s  press  his  fear  that,  perhaps,  he  had  not  understood  their 


14  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

character,  or  the  subject  of  which  he  was  about  to  treat. 
There  was  no  apology  to  the  Irish  in  America, — the  four- 
teen millions  before  whom  he  so  boldly  told  his  story,  en- 
deavoring to  hold  them  up  as  an  irreligious,  licentious, 
contentious,  obstinate,  ungovernable  race.  None  at  all.  It 
was  not  necessary ;  they  were  only  Irish !  If  they  were 
Scotch,  how  the  learned  gentleman  would  have  come  with 
a  thousand  apologies  for  his  presumption  in  venturing  to 
approach  such  a' delicate  subject  as  a  delineation  of  the 
sweet  Scotch  character,  or  anything  connected  with  it ! 

What,  on  the  other  hand,  is  his  treatment  of  the  Irish  ? 
I  have  in  this  book  before  me  the  words  that  came  from  his 
pen :  and  I  protest,  as  I  read  them,  I  felt  every  drop  of  my 
Irish  blood  boiling  in  my  veins.  I  felt  how  bitter  was  the 
taunt  when  he  said : — "  They  may  be  good  at  the  voting 
booths,  but  they  are  no  good  to  handle  the  rifle !"  He 
compares  us,  in  this  essay,  to  a  pack  of  hounds;  and  he 
says : — 

"  To  tell  Ireland  to  go  in  peace  and  freedom  would  be  the 
same  as  if  a  gentleman  addressed  his  hounds,  and  said,  '  I 
give  you  your  freedom ;  now,  go  out  and  act  as  you  please.' 
It  is  needless  to  say  that,  after  worrying  all  the  sheep  in  the 
neighborhood,  they  would  end  by  tearing  each  other  to 
pieces." 

I  deplore  this  feeling.  The  man  who  is  possessed  by  it 
can  never  understand  the  philosophy  of  Irish  history. 

Thirdly,  Mr.  Froude  is  utterly  unfit  for  the  task  of  delin- 
eating or  interpreting  the  history  of  the  Irish  people,  because 
of  the  more  than  contempt, — the  bitter  hatred  and  detesta- 
tion,— in  which  he  holds  the  Catholic  clergy  and  the  Catholic 
religion.  In  this  book  before  me,  he  speaks  of  the  Catholic 
Church  as  an  "  Old  Serpent,  whose  poisonous  fangs  have 
b(3en  drawn  from  her;" — as  a  *' Witch  of  Endor,  mumbling 
curses  to-day  because  she  cannot  burn  at  the  stake  and  shed 


NOBMAN  INVASION  AND  MISHULE.  15 

blood  as  of  old."  He  most  unfairly  charges  the  Church  with 
and  makes  her  responsible  for  the  French  massacre  of  St. 
Bartholomew's  Day ;  for  the  persecutions  and  deaths  which 
originated  from  the  revolt  of  the  Netherlands,  against  the 
Duke  of  Alva,  under  Philip  II.;  for  every  murder  and 
butchery  that  has  been  committed,  he  says,  with  the  virus 
of  the  most  intense  prejudice,  that  the  Catholic  Church  lies 
at  the  bottom  of  them  all,  and  is  responsible  for  them.  The 
very  gentlemen  that  welcomed  him  and  surrounded  him 
when  he  came  to  New  York,  gave  him  plainly  to  understand 
that,  where  the  Catholic  religion  is  involved,  where  a  favor- 
ite theory  is  to  be  considered,  or  a  favorite  view  has  to  be 
proved,  they  do  not  consider  him  as  a  reliable  or  trustwor- 
thy witness  or  historian Not,  I  again  de- 
clare, that  I  believe  this  gentleman  to  be  capable  of  a  lie.  I 
do  not.  I  believe  he  is  incapable  of  it.  But  wherever 
prejudice  such  as  his  comes  in,  it  distorts  the  most  well- 
known  facts  for  its  own  purpose.  Thus,  the  gentleman 
wishes  to  exalt  Queen  Elizabeth  by  blackening  the  character 
of  Mary  Queen  of  Scots;  and  in  doing  this  he  has  been 
convicted,  by  a  citizen  of  Brooklyn,  of  putting  his  own 
words  as  if  they  were  the  words  of  ancient  chronicles,  and 
ancient  laws  and  deeds  and  documents ;  and  the  taunt  has 
been  flung  at  him':  "  Mr.  Froude  has  never  grasped  the 
meaning  of  inverted  commas." 

Henry  YIII.,  of  blessed  memory,  has  been  painted  by 
this  historian  as  a  most  estimable  man, — as  chaste  as  a  monk. 
Bless  your  souls  !  you  are  all  mistaken  about  him  !  A  man 
that  never  robbed  anybody  !  burning  with  zeal  for  the  public 
good  !  His  putting  away  his  wife,  and  taking  young  Anna 
Boleyn  to  his  embraces  ! — oh !  that  was  a  chaste  anxiety  for 
the  public  welfare.  All  the  atrocities  of  this  monster  in 
human  shape  melt  away  under  Mr.  Froude's  eyes;  and 
Henry  YIII.  rises  before  us  in  such  a  form,  that  even  the 


16  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IBELAND. 

Protestants  of  England,  when  they  saw  him  as  described  by 
Mr.  Froude,  cried  out : — "  Oh,  you  have  mistaken  your 
man !  "  One  fact  will  show  you  how  this  gentleman  writes 
history.  When  Henry  YIII.  declared  war  against  the 
Church, — when  England  was  distracted  by  his  tyranny, — one 
day  hanging  a  Catholic  because  he  would  not  deny  the 
supremacy  of  the  Pope,  and  the  next  day  hanging  a  Protes- 
tant for  denying  the  Real  Presence  in  the  Blessed  Sacrament ; 
— during  this  time,  when  the  ministers  who  remained  faith- 
ful to  the  Pope  were  most  odious  to  the  tyrant ;  and  such  was 
the  slavish  acquiescence  of  the  English  people,  that  they  be- 
gan to  hate  their  clergy,  in  order  to  please  their  king, — a 
certain  man,  whose  name  was  Hun,  was  lodged  a  prisoner  in 
the  Lorillai^d  Tower,  and  he  was  found  in  his  cell,  hanged 
by  the  neck,  and  dead.  There  was  a  coroner's  inquest  held 
over  him,  and  the  twelve — I  can  call  them  nothing  but  the 
twelve  blackguards — that  were  on  the  jury, — in  order  to  ex- 
press their  own  hatred,  and  to  please  the  powers  that  were, 
brought  in  a  verdict  of  wilful  murder  against  the  Chancellor 
of  the  Bishop  of  London,  a  most  excellent  priest.  When 
the  Bishop  heard  of  this  verdict,  he  applied  to  the  Prime 
Minister  to  have  the  verdict  quashed ;  just  the  same  as  if 
they  found  a  verdict  of  wilful  murder  against  you,  who  Avere 
not  yet  born.  He  brought  the  matter  before  the  House  of 
Lords,  in  order  that  the  character  of  his  Chancellor  might 
be  fully  vindicated.  The  King's  Attorney-General  took 
cognizance  of  it ;  and  by  a  solemn  decree  the  verdict  of  the 
coroner's  jury  was  set  aside  ;  and  these  twelve  men  were  de- 
clared to  be  twelve  perjurers.  Now,  listen  to  Mr.  Froude's 
version  of  that  story.  Writing  the  history  of  England,  he 
comes  to  that  fact ;  and  he  says  ; 

"  The  clergy  at  that  time  were  reduced  to  such  a  state  oj 
immorality  and  wickedness,  that,  Hun  being  found  de;id  in 
his  cell,  a  coroner's  jury  actually  found  a  verdict  of  mur- 


NOBMAN  INVASION  AND  MISRULE.  17 

der  against  the  Chancellor  of  the  Bishop  of  London ;  and 
the  Bishop  was  obliged  to  apply  to  Cardinal  Wolsey  for  a 
special  jury  to  try  the  Chancellor,  because,  if  they  took  any 
ordinary  twelve  men,  they  would  be  sure  to  find  him  guilty :  " 

— leaving  the  reader  under  the  impression,  that  the  man  was 
guilty  of  a  murder,  of  which  he  was  as  innocent  as  Abel ;  and 
that  if  he  were  placed  before  any  twelve  of  his  countrymen, 
they  would  find  him  guilty  on  the  evidence.  This  is  the  im- 
pression this  "  candid  writer  "  leaves,  knowing  the  facts  as 
well  as  I  know  them. 

Well,  now,  we  come  to  consider  the  subject  of  his  first 
lecture  ;  and,  indeed,  I  must  say,  I  never  personally  expe- 
rienced the  difiiculty  of  hunting  a  will-o'-the-wisp  through  a 
marsh,  until  I  came  to  follow  this  learned  gentleman  in  his 
first  lecture.  I  say  this,  not  disrespectfully  to  him  at  all ; 
but  he  covered  so  much  ground,  and  at  such  unequal  dis- 
tances, that  it  is  impossible  to  follow  him  with  anything  like 
order.  He  began  by  telling  how  Minister  Rufus  King  wrote 
a  letter  about  certain  Irishmen  ;  and  he  went  on  to  say  how, 
— in  the  time  of  America's  great  Revolutionary  struggle, — 
the  Catholics  of  Ireland  sympathized  with  England,  while 
the  Protestants  of  Ireland  were  breast-high  for  America. 
All  these  questions — which  belong  to  our  own  day, — 1  will 
leave  aside  for  the  present ;  and  when  I  come,  towards  the 
close  of  my  lectures,  to  speak  of  them,  then  I  shall  have 
great  pleasure  in  taking  up  Mr.  Froude's  assertions  and 
examining  them. 

But, — coming  home  to  the  great  question  of  Ireland, — what 
does  this  gentleman  tell  us  ?  He  tells  us  that,  seven  hun- 
dred years  ago,  Ireland  was  invaded  by  the  Anglo-Normans  : 
and  the  first  thing,  apparently,  he  wishes  to  do  is  to  justify 
this  invasion,  and  to  establish  the  principle  that  the  Nor- 
mans were  right  in  coming  to  Ireland.  How  does  he  do 
tb  is  ?     He  begins  by  drawing  a  terrible  picture  of  the  state 


18  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IM  IRELAND. 

of  Ireland  before  the  invasion.  He  says — they  were  cutting 
each  other's  throats ;  the  whole  land  was  covered  with 
bloodshed ;  there  was  in  Ireland  neither  religion,  morality, 
nor  government ;  and,  therefore,  the  Pope  found  it  necessary 
to  send  the  Normans  to  Ireland,  as  one  would  send  a  police- 
man into  a  saloon  where  the  people  were  killing  each  other. 
This  is  the  first  justification — that  in  Ireland,  seven  hundred 
years  ago, — just  before  the  Norman  invasion, — there  was 
neither  morality,  religion,  nor  government.  Let  us  see  if 
he  is  right. 

The  first  proof  Mr.  Froude  gives  that  there  was  no  gov- 
ernment in  Ireland,  is  a  most  insidious  statement.  He 
says : — 

"  How  could  there  be  any  government  in  a  country  where 
every  family  maintained  itself  according  to  its  own  ideas, 
right  or  wrong,  and  acknowledged  no  authority  ?  " 

"Well,  if  this  be  true,  according  to  the  modern  use  of  the 
word  "  family,"  certainly  Ireland  was  in  a  deplorable  state ; 
every  family  governing  itself  according  to  its  own  notions, 
and  acknowledging  no  authority.  What  does  he  mean  by 
the  word  "family"?  Speaking  to  Americans  in  this  nine- 
teenth century,  the  word  "family"  means  every  household 
in  the  land.  We  talk  of  a  man  and  his  family, — the  father 
and  mother,  and  three  or  four,  five  or  six  children,  as  the 
case  may  be.  This  is  our  idea  as  to  the  word  family ;  and 
using  the  word  in  this  sense,  I  fully  admit  that,  if  every 
family  in  Ireland  were  governed  by  their  own  ideas,  admit- 
ting no  authority,  Mr.  Froude  has  established  his  case.  But 
what  is  the  fact  ?  What  is  the  meaning  of  the  word  "  family," 
as  applied  in  Ireland,  seven  hundred  years  ago.  The  "  family," 
in  Ireland,  meant  the  sept,  or  tribe — all  that  had  the  same 
name.  They  owned  whole  counties,  a  large  extent  of  ter- 
ritory.   The  men  of  the  same  name  were  called  the  men  of  the 


NORMAN  INVASION  AND  MISRULE,  19 

game  familj ;  as  for  instance,  the  McMurroughs,  of  Leinster ; 
the  O'Tooles,  of  Wicklow;  the  O'Byrnes,  of  Kildare;  the 
O' Conors,  of  Connaiight ;  the  O'Briens,  of  Munster ;  the 
O'Neills  and  O'Donnells,  of  Ulster.  The  family  meant  a 
nation ;  the  family  mean  two  or  three  counties  of  Ireland, 
governed  by  one  Chieftain ;  all  the  men  of  one  sept :  and  it 
is  quite  triTe  that  every  such  family  governed  itself  in  its 
own  independence,  and  acknowledged  no  superior.  That  is 
quite  true.  There  were  five  great  families  in  Ireland :  the 
O'Conors,  in  Connaught ;  the  O'Neills,  in  Ulster ;  the  Mc- 
Laughlins, in  Meath ;  the  O'Briens,  in  Munster ;  and  the 
McMurroughs,  in  Leinster.  Under  these  five  great  heads 
there  were  many  septs,  or  smaller  families,  each  counting 
from  five  hundred  or  six  hundred  to  a  thousand  fighting 
men :  but  all  acknowledging,  in  the  different  Provinces,  the 
sovereignty  of-  these  five  great  royal  houses.  These  five 
houses,  again,  elected  their  monarch,  or  supreme  ruler,  called 
the  "  Ard-righ,"  who  dwelt  in' Tara.  I  ask,  if  the  family 
thus  meant  a  w^hole  sept  or  tribe,  having  a  regularly  consti- 
tuted head,  is  it  fair  to  say  that  Ireland  was  in  a  state  of  an- 
archy because  every  family  governed  itself?  Is  it  fair  of 
this  gentleman  thus  to  try  and  hoodwink  the  American  jury, 
to  which  he  has  made  his  appeal,  by  describing  the  Irish 
family,  which  meant  a  sept  or  tribe,  as  a  family  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  which  means  only  the  head  of  the  house  and 
the  mother  and  children? 

Again,  he  says,  the  Irish  people  lived  like  the  New-Zea- 
landers  of  to-day,  in  underground  caves  :  and  then  he  de- 
clares holdly — "  I,  myself,  opened  one  of  these  underground 
lodging-houses  of  the  Irish  people."  Now,  mark  !  this  gen- 
tleman lives  in  Ireland ;  and,  a  few  years  ago,  he  opened  an 
ancient  rath  in  Kerry, — one  of  those  Danish  raths; — and 
there  he  discovered  a  cave  and  some  remains  of  mussel- 
shells  and  bones.     At  the  time  of  that  discovery  he  had  the 


20  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

most  learned  archaeologist  in  Ireland  with  him :  and  they 
put  their  heads  together  about  it;  but  Mr.  Froude  has  vvrit- 
ten  in  this  very  book  before  me  that  what  these  places  were 
intended  for, — what  use  they  were  applied  to, — balfled  con- 
jecture :  no  one  could  tell  it.  Well,  if  it  baffled  conjecture 
then,  and  they  could  not  tell  what  to  make  of  it — if  it  so 
puzzled  him  then,  what  right  has  he  to  come  out  here  in 
America,  and  say  they  were  the  ordinary  dwellings  of  the 
Irish  people  ? 

In  order  to  understand  the  state  of  Ireland  before  the 
Norman  invasion,  I  must  ask  you  to  consider,  first,  the  an- 
cient Irish  Constitution  which  governed  the  land.  Ireland 
was  governed  by  septs  or  families.  The  land,  from  time  im- 
memorial, was  in  possession  of  these  families  or  tribes.  Each 
tribe  elected  its  own  Chieftain;  and  to  him  they  paid  the 
most  devoted  allegiance  and  obedience  ;  so  that  the  fidelity 
of  the  Irish  clansman  to  his  chief  was  proverbial.  The 
chief,  during  his  lifetime,  convoked  an  assembly  of  the  tribe  ; 
and  they  elected  from  among  the  members  of  the  family  the 
best  and  the  strongest  man  to  be  his  successor :  and  they 
called  him  the  Tanist.  The  object  of  this  was  that  the  suc- 
cessor of  the  King  might  be  known,  and  that,  at  the  King's 
death,  there  might  be  no  riot  or  bloodshed,  or  contention  for 
the  right  to  succeed  him.  "Was  not  this  a  wise  law  ?  An 
elective  monarchy  has  its  advantages.  The  best  man  comes 
to  the  front  because  he  is  chosen  by  his  fellow-men.  When 
they  came  to  select  a  successor  to  their  Prince,  the  King's 
eldest  son  had  no  right,  because  he  was  the  King's  son,  to 
succeed  his  father ;  he  might  be  a  booby  or  a  fool.  So,  they 
wisely  selected  the  best  and  strongest  and  bravest  and  wisest 
man ;  and  he  was  acknowledged  to  have  the  right  of  succes- 
sion ;  he  was  the  Tanist,  according  to  the  ancient  law  of  Ire- 
land. Well,  these  families,  as  I  have  said,  in  the  various 
Provinces,  owed  and  paid  allegiance  to  the  King  of  the 


NORMAN  INVASION  AND  MISRULE.  21 

Province,  wlio  was  one  of  the  five  gi-eat  families,  called  "the 
Five  Bloods  of  Ireland."  Each  Prince  had  his  own  Judge, 
or  Brehon,  who  administered  justice  in  solemn  court  for  the 
people.  These  Brehons,  or  Irish  judges,  were  learned  men. 
The  historians  of  the  times  tell  us,  they  could  speak  Latin 
as  fluently  as  they  could  Irish.  They  had  an  established 
code  of  law,  had  colleges  where  they  studied  that  law ;  and 
it  w^as  only  when  they  graduated  in  their  studies  that  they 
came  home  to  their  respective  septs,  or  tribes,  and  were  es- 
tablished as  Brehons  or  Judges  over  the  people.  Kowhere 
in  the  history  of  Ireland  do  we  read  that  any  man  rebelled 
or  protested  against  the  decision  of  a  Brehon  Judge.  Then 
the  five  monarchs,  in  the  five  Provinces,  elected  the  *'  Ard- 
righ"  or  High  King.  With  him,  they  sat  in  council  on  na- 
tional matters,  and  on  all  matters  that  concerned  the  whole 
people,  within  the  halls  of  imperial  Tara.  There  St.  Patrick 
found  them  in  the  year  432,  minstrels  and  bards,  and  Bre- 
hons, princes,  crowned  monarchs,  and  High  King: — there 
did  he  find  them,  discussing,  like  wise  and  prudent  men,  the 
affairs  of  the  nation,  when  he  preached  to  them  the  Faith  of 
Christ.  While  this  Constitution  remained,  the  clansmen 
paid  no  rent  for  their  land.  The  land  of  the  tribe  or  family 
was  held  in  common — it  was  the  common  property  of  all ; 
and  the  Brehon  or  Judge  divided  it,  giving  to  each  man  what 
was  necessary  for  liim,  with  free  right  of  pasturage  over  the 
v/hole.  They  had  no  idea  of  slavery  or  serfdom  among  them. 
The  Irish  clansman  was  of  the  same  blood  as  his  Chieftain. 
The  O'Brien  that  sat  in  the  saddle,  at  the  head  of  his  men, 
was  related  by  blood  to  the  Gallowglass  O'Brien  that  fought 
in  the  ranks.  There  was  no  such  thing  as  slavery  among 
them ;  no  such  thing  as  the  Chieftain  looking  down  upon  the 
people ;  no  such  thing  as  cowed,  abject  submission  on  the 
part  of  the  people  to  every  worthless  decree.  The  Chieftain 
was  one  of  themselves ;  and  the  men  stood  in  the  ranks  aa 


22  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND, 

freemen,  jperfectly  equal,  one  with  another.  We  are  toLJ 
even  by  Gerald  Barry,  the  lying  historian,  who  sometimes, 
though  rarely,  told  the  truth,  that,  when  the  English  came  to 
Ireland,  nothing  astonished  them  more  than  the  free  and  bold 
manner  in  which  the  humblest  man  spoke  to  his  Chieftain, 
and  the  condescension  and  equality  with  which  the  Chieftain 
treated  the  humblest  soldier  in  his  tribe.  This  was  the  an- 
cient Irish  Constitution.  Does  this  look  like  anarchy  ?  No  ! 
It  cannot  be  said,  with  truth,  that  there  was  anarchy  in  a 
land  where  the  laws  were  so  well  defined,  where  everything 
was  in  its  proper  place.  Mr.  Froude  says  that  there  was,  be- 
cause that  the  Chieftains  were  fighting  amongst  themselves. 
And  so  they  were.  But  he  immediately  adds,  that  there  was 
fighting  everywhere  throughout  Europe,  after  the  breaking 
up  of  the  Roman  Empire.  If  there  was  fighting  going  on 
in  every  land, — if  the  Saxon  was  cutting  the  Norman's 
throat,  in  England, — what  right  has  he  to  say  that  Ireland, 
beyond  all  nations,  was  given  up  to  anarchy,  because  Chief- 
tain drew  the  sword  against  Chieftain,  frequently,  or  from 
time  to  time  ? 

So  much  for  the  question  of  government.  Now  for  the 
question  of  religion.  The  Catholic  religion  flourished  in 
Ireland  for  six  hundred  years  and  more  before  the  Anglo- 
Normans  invaded  her  coasts.  For  the  first  three  hundred 
years  after  the  introduction  of  Christianity  into  Ireland,  the 
religion  of  the  Irish  was  the  glory  of  the  world  and  the 
pride  of  God's  holy  Church.  Ireland,  for  these  three  hun- 
dred years,  was  the  island-mother  home  of  saints  and  scholars. 
Men  came  from  every  country  of  the  then  known  world  to 
light  the  lamp  of  knowledge  and  sanctity  at  the  sacred  fire 
that  burned  upon  the  altars  of  Ireland.  Then  came  the 
Danes ;  and  for  three  hundred  years  more  our  people  were 
harassed  by  incessant  wars.  The  Danes,  as  Mr.  Froude 
remarked, — apparently  with  a  good  deal  of  approval, — had 


NORMAN  INVASION  AND  MISRULE.  23 

no  respect  for  Christ  or  His  religion.  The  first  thing  they 
did  was  to  pull  do^vn  the  churches,  and  set  fire  to  the 
monasteries.  They  slaughtered  the  mpnks  and  holy  priests 
and  Bishops  of  Ireland.  The  people  were  left  without  re- 
ligious instruction,  for  in  time  of  war  men  have  not  much 
time  to  think  af  religion.  For  three  hundred  years  Ireland 
was  subjected,  year  after  year,  to  the  incursions  of  the 
Danes;  until  on  Good  Friday  morning,  1014,  Brian  Bo- 
roihme  defeated  them  at  the  gi-eat  battle  of  Clontarf.  But 
it  was  not  until  the  twelfth  century, — on  the  23d  of 
August,  1103, — that  they  were  finally  driven  out  of  the 
country,  by  the  defeat  of  Magnus,  their  King,  on  Lough 
Strangford,  in  the  North  of  Ireland. 

The  consequence  of  those  Danish  wars  was  that  the 
Catholic  religion, — though  it  remained  in  all  its  vital 
strength,  and  in  all  the  purity  of  its  faith,  among  the  Irish 
people, — w^as  sadly  shorn  of  that  sanctity  which  adorned  it 
for  the  first  three  hundred  years  of  Ireland's  Christianity. 
Vices  sprang  up  among  the  people.  They  were  accustomed 
to  war,  war,  war,  night  and  day,  for  three  centuries.  Where 
is  the  people  on  the  face  of  the  earth  that  would  not  be  ut- 
terly demoralized  by  fifty  years  of  war,  not  to  speak  at  all 
of  three  hundred  ?  The  wars  of  the  Hoses  in  England  did 
not  last  more  than  thirty  years ;  but  the  people  were  so 
demoralized  by  their  efiects  that, — almost  without  a  single 
struggle, — they  changed  their  religion  at  the  dictate  of  the 
blood-thirsty  and  licentious  tyrant,  Henry  VIII.  But  no 
sooner  were  the  Danes  gone,  than  the  Irish  people  assem- 
bled their  Bishops  and  Princes  in  Council.  We  find,  almost 
the  very  year  after  the  final  expulsion  of  the  Danes,  a  Coun- 
cil was  held :  and  here  gathered  their  bishops  and  priests 
and  almost  all  the  chieftains  of  the  land,  the  heads  of  the 
leading  septs  or  families:  and  they  framed  wise  laws,  en- 
deavoring to  repair  all   that   Ireland    lost   in   the   Danish 


24  EN0LI8H  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND, 

invasion ;  and  strict  laws  of  Christian  morality  were  en- 
forced. Again  we  find  a  Council  assembled,  with  the  Papal 
Legate  Cardinal  Paparo  at  its  head,  in  the  year  1164,  five 
years  before  the  Normans  invaded  us.  Now,  we  find  the 
same  Cardinal  Paparo,  the  very  year  before  the  Norman 
invasion,  presiding  at  a  Council  of  the  Bishops  of  Ireland. 
We  find  the  people  marking  laws  for  their  government,  and 
preparing  to  observe  them  faithfully.  We  find  the  Irish 
Bishops  and  Archbishops  supported  by  the  swords  and  the 
power  of  the  Chieftains.  We  find  the  Pope's  Legate  travel- 
ling fearlessly  into  Ireland,  whenever  his  master  sent  him, 
without  let  or  hindrance  ;  and  when  he  arrived  he  was  re- 
ceived with  all  the  devotion  and  chivalrous  affection  which 
the  Irish  have  always  evinced  towards  the  representatives  of 
their  religion  and  their  God.  It  is  worth  our  while  to  see 
what  was  the  result  of  all  these  Councils,  what  was  the  re- 
sult of  this  great  religious  revival,  which  was  taking  place 
in  Ireland  during  the  few  years  that  elapsed  between  the 
end  of  the  Danish  and  the  beofinning  of  the  Norman  inva- 
sion.  We  find  three  gi-eat  Irish  Saints  reigning  together  in 
the  Church.  We  find  St.  Malachi,  Primate  of  Armagh. 
We  find  him  succeeded  by  St.  Celsus ;  and  he  again  by  St. 
Gregorius,  whose  name  is  in  the  Martyrology  of  Home. 
We  find,  in  Dublin,  St.  Laurence  O'Toole,  of  glorious  mem- 
ory. We  find  Felix  and  Christian,  two  Bishops  reigning  in 
Lismore,  in  Waterford.  And  we  find  every  man  of  them 
filling  not  only  Ireland,  but  enshrined  by  the  whole  Church 
of  God  for  their  learning  and  the  brightness  of  their  sanctity. 
We  find,  at  the  same  time,  Catholicus,  in  Down ;  Augustin 
O'Daly,  in  Waterford ;  Dionysius,  Marianus,  Johannes 
Scotus,  Gregorius  and  others  ; — all  Irish  monks,  famous  for 
their  learning,  famous  for  their  sanctity, — in  the  great  Bene- 
dictine Monastery  of  Batisbon.  We  find,  moreover,  just 
before  the  Normans  arrived,  in  1168,  a  great  Council  was 


NOBMAIi  INYASIOIT  AND  MISRULE.  95 

held  in  Atliboy.  Thirteen  thousand  representatives  of  the 
nPvtion, — thirteen  thousand  warriors  on  horseback,  with  their 
Chieftains, — attended  that  Council,  that  they  might  hear 
whatever  the  Church  commanded,  and  obey  it.  What  was 
the  result  of  all  this  ?  I  am  not  speaking  from  any  preju- 
diced point  of  view.  It  has  been  said  that  if  Mr.  Froude 
gave  the  history  of  Ireland  from  an  outside  point  of  viev/,  * 
Father  Burke  would  give  it  from  an  inside  view.  I  am 
only  quoting  English  authorities  :  and  in  this  interval,  I 
find  Langfranc,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  writing  to 
Brian,  King  of  Munster,  to  congratulate  him  upon  the  re- 
ligious spirit  and  peaceful  disposition  of  his  people.  Fur- 
thermore, St.  Anselm, — one  of  the  greatest  English  saints, 
and  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  under  William  Hufus, — 
has  v.^ritten  as  follows  to  Murchertach  O'Brien,  King  of 
Munster : — 

"  I  give  thanks  to  God  for  the  many  good  things  we  hear 
of  your  Highness,  and  especially  for  the  profound  peace 
which  the  subjects  of  your  realm  enjo}^.  All  good  men  who 
hear  this  give  thanks  to  God,  and  pray  that  He  may  grant 
you  length  of  days." 

The  man  who  wrote  that,  perhaps,  was  thinking  of  the 
awful  corruption, — the  impiety  and  darkness  of  the  most 
terrible  kind, — wdiich  covered  the  Avhole  land  of  England 
under  the  reign  of  the  ferocious  "  Red  King,"  William  Ru- 
fus.  Yet,  the  Irish  were  irreligious,  we  are  told  by  Mr. 
Froude! — and  a  good  judge  he  must  be  of  religion  ;  for  he 
says  it  is  a  well-known  fact,  that  religion  is  a  thing  of  which 
one  man  knows  as  much  as  another ;  and  none  of  us  know 
anything  at  ail.  He  tells  us  that  the  Irish  were  without 
religion  at  that  very  time,  when  the  Irish  Church  was  form- 
ing itself  into  the  ancient  model  of  sanctity,  which  it  was 
before  the  Danish  invasion  ;  when,  until  the  time,  two  j^cars 

before  the  Normans  came,  Ireland  was  at  peace,  and  Roderic, 
2 


26  ENQLI8R  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

King  of  Connauglit,  vv^as  acknowledged  "  Ard-rigli,"  by  every 
Prince  and  every  Ciiieftain  in  the  land. 

As  to  the  charge  that  Ireland  was  without  morality,  I  v/ill 
answer  it  by  one  fact:  A  King  in  Ireland  stole  another 
man's  v>afe.  His  name— ^acciirsetl — was  Dermot  McMur- 
rough,  King  of  Leinster.  Every  Chieftain  in  Ireland, — • 
every  man  in  the  land, — rose  np  and  banished  him  from 
Irish  soil,  as  unworthy  to  live  in  the  land.  If  this  was  the 
immoral  people, — if  this  was  the  bestial,  animal,  depraved 
race  which  Mr.  Froude  describes  to  us,  on  lying  Norman 
authorities,  may  I  ask  you,  could  not  Dermot  turn  round 
and  say  to  the  Chieftains :  "  Why  do  you  make  war  upon 
me  ?  have  I  not  as  good  a  right  to  be  a  blackguard  as  any- 
body else?" 

Now  conies  Mr.  Froude,  and  says  that  the  Normans  were 
sent  to  Ireland  to  teach  the  Irish  the  Ten  Commandments. 
In  the  language  of  Shakspere,  I  say,  "  I  thank  thee,  Jew, 
for  teaching  me  that  word."  Of  these  Ten  Commandments, 
the  most  important,  in  relation  to  human  society,  are : 
«'  Thou  Shalt  not  steal."  "  Thou  shalt  not  kill."  "  Thou 
shalt  not  covet  thy  neighbor's  wife."  The  Normans,  accord- 
ing to  Mr.  Froude's  own  showing,  had  no  right  or  title  to 
one  square  inch  of  the  soil  of  Ireland.  They  came  to  take 
what  was  not  theirs,  what  they  had  no  right  or  title  to. 
They  came,  as  robbers  and  thieves,  to  teach  the  Ten  Com- 
mandments to  the  Irish  people  ;  amongst  them  the  Com- 
mandment— "  Thou  shalt  not  steal." 

Henry  landed  in  Ireland  in  1171.  He  was  after  murder- 
ing the  holy  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  St.  Thomas  a 
Becket.  They  scattered  his  brains  at  the  foot  of  the  altar, 
before  the  Blessed  Sacrament,  at  the  Yesper  hour.  His 
blood  was  uj^on  the  hands  of  this  monster, — he  who  came 
to  Ireland  to  teach  the  Irish — "Thou  shalt  not  kill!" 
"Wi^at  was  the  action  of  this  "  reformer  "  when  the  adulterer 


NOBMAN  INVASION  AND  MISRULE.  27 

was  driven  from  the  sacred  soil  of  Erin,  as  one  unworthy 
to  profane  it  by  his  tread.  He  went  over  to  Henry  II., 
and  got  from  him  a  letter  permitting  any  of  iiis  subjects 
that  chose  to  embark  for  Ireland,  there  to  reinstate  the 
adulterer  and  tyrant  in  his  kingdom.  They  came,  then,  a? 
proved,  as  helpers  of  an  adulterer,  to  teach  the  Irish  "  Thou 
shalt  not  covet  thy  neighbor's  wife  !  "  Mr.  Froude  tells  us 
they  were  right — that  they  were  apostles  of  purity  and 
honesty  and  clemency ;  and  Mr.  Froude  "  is  an  honorable 
man." 

"Ah!  but,"  he  says,  "my  good  Dominican  friend,  re- 
member, that,  if  they  came,  they  came  because  the  Pope 
sent  them."  King  Henry,  in  the  year  1174,  produced  a 
letter  Vv^hich  he  said  he  got  from  Pope  Adrian  IV.,  permit- 
ting him  to  go  to  Ireland,  and  urging  him,  according  to  the 
terms  of  that  letter,  to  do  whatever  he  thought  right  and  fit 
to  promote  the  glory  of  God  and  the  good  of  the  people. 
The  date  that  was  on  the  letter  was  1154,  consequently  it 
was  tv/enty  years  old.  During  twenty  years  nobody  had 
ever  heard  of  that  letter  except  Henry,  v/ho  had  it  in  his 
pocket,  and  an  old  man,  called  John  of  Salisbury,  who  went 
to  Rome  and  got  the  letter  in  a  hugger-mugger  way,  from 
the  Pope.  It  has  been  examined  by  a  better  authority  than 
mine — by  one  who  has  brought  to  bear  upon  it  all  the  acu- 
men of  his  great  knowledge.  It  bears, — according  to  Reim- 
er,  the  most  acceptable  authority  amongst  English  histo- 
rians,— the  date  of  1154.  Pope  Adrian  was  elected  on  the 
3d  of  December,  1154.  As  soon  as  the  news  of  his  elec- 
tion had  arrived  in  England,  John  of  Salisbury  was  sent  by 
King  Henry  to  congratulate  him,  and  get  this  letter.  He 
was  elected  on  the  3d  of  December.  It  must  have  been  a 
month  later  before  the  news  arrived  in  England.  In  those 
days  no  letter  could  come  so  far,  at  least,  under  a  month. 
John  of  Salisbury  set  out ;  and  it  must  ha\  e  been  another 


28  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

month  before  lie  arrived  in  Rome;  consequently  it  must 
have  been  the  beginning  of  March,  1155,  when  he  arrived 
in  Rome  ;  yet  the  letter  of  the  Pope  is  dated  1154!  It 
was  found  inconvenient,  this  date  of  Reimer's ;  and  by 
whatever  authority  he  did  it,  it  seems  he  changed  the  date 
afterwards  to  1155. 

"  But,"  says  Mr.  Froude,  "  there  is  a  copy  of  this  letter 
in  the  archives  at  Rome.  How  do  you  get  over  that  ?  " 
Well,  the  copy  has  no  date  at  all.  As  Baronius,  the  histo- 
rian, and  the  learned  Dr.  Mansuerius  declare — a  rescript  or 
document  that  has  no  date, — the  day  it  was  executed,  the 
seal  and  the  year, — is  invalid — just  so  much  paper ; — so  that 
even  if  Adrian  gave  it,  it  was  worth  nothing.  Again, 
learned  authorities  tell  us  that  the  existence  of  a  document 
in  the  archives  does  not  prove  the  authenticity  of  that  doc- 
ument. It  may  be  kept  there  as  a  mere  record.  It  was 
said  that  Henry  kept  this  letter  a  secret,  because  his  mother, 
the  Empress  Matilda,  did  not  wish  him  to  act  on  it.  But  if 
he  had  the  letter,  when  he  came  to  Ireland,  why  did  he  not 
produce  it  ?  That  was  his  only  warrant  for  coming  to  Ire- 
land. He  came  there  and  invaded  the  country,  and  never 
breathed  a  Avord  about  having  that  letter,  to  a  human  being. 
There  is  a  lie  on  the  face  of  it. 

But  Mr.  Froude  says  that  Alexander  III.,  Adrian's  suc- 
cessor, has  mentioned  that  rescript  or  document  in  a  letter. 
The  answer  I  give  on  the  authority  of  Dr.  Lynch,  the 
author  of  "  Cambrensis  Eversus,"  as  well  as  the  Abbe 
McGeoghegan,  one  of  the  greatest  Irish  scholars,  and  one  of 
the  best  archaeologists ;  and  Dr.  Moran,  the  learned  bishop 
of  Ossory — that  Alexander's  letter  was  a  forgery,  as  well 
as  that  of  Adrian  IV.  There  are  many  learned  men  who 
admit  the  genuineness  of  both  Adrian's  and  Alexander's 
rescripts  ;  but  there  are*  an  equally  large  number  who  deny 
it ;  and  I  prefer  to  believe  with  them  that  it  was  a  forgery. 


X 


NORMAN  INVASION  AND  MISRULE.  29 

Alexander's  letter  bore  the  date  of  1172.  Let  iis  see  is  it 
likely  that  Pope  would  give  a  letter  to  Henry,  whom  he 
knew  well,  asking  him  to  take  care  of  the  Church  and  set 
everything  in  order?  Remember,  Adrian  did  not  kno\N 
him,  but  Alexander  knew  him  well.  Henry,  in  1159,  sup- 
ported the  anti-Pope,  Octavianus,  against  Alexander. 
Henry,  in  11G6,  supported  the  anti-Pope,  Guido,  against 
Alexander.  According  to  Mathew  of  Westminster,  Henry 
obliged  every  man  in  England, — from  the  boy  of  twelve 
years  up  to  the  old  man, — to  renounce  their  allegiance  to  the 
true  Pope,  and  go  over  to  an  anti-Pope.  Was  it  likely, 
then,  the  Pope  would  give  him  a  letter  to  settle  ecclesiasti- 
cal matters  in  Ireland  ?  Alexander  himself  wrote  to  Henry, 
and  said  to  him, — instead  of  referring  to  a  document  giving 
him  permission  to  settle  Church  matters  in  Ireland ; — 

"  Instead  of  remedying  the  disorders  caused  by  your  pre- 
decessors, you  have  oppressed  the  Church,  and  you  have  en- 
deavored to  destroy  the  canons  of  apostolic  men." 

Is  this  the  man  that  Alexander  v/ould  send  to  Ireland  to 
settle  affairs,  and  make  the  Irish  good  children  of  the  Pojie  ? 

According  to  Mr.  Proude,  the  Irish  never  loved  the  Pope 
till  the  Normans  taught  them.  What  is  the  fact  ?  Until 
the  accursed  Normans  came  to  Ireland,  the  Papal  Legate 
always  came  and  went  when  and  wherever  he  would,  at  his 
own  v/ill.  iNo  Irish  king  obstructed  him  ;  no  Irishman's 
hand  was  ever  raised  against  a  Bishop,  much  less  against 
the  Papal  Legate.  But  the  very  first  Legate  that  came  to 
Ireland,  after  the  Norman  Invasion,  in  passing  through 
England,  Henry  took  him  by  the  throat,  and  imposed  upon 
him  an  oath  that,  when  he  went  to  Ireland,  he  would  not  do 
anything  that  would  be  against  the  interest  of  the  King. 
It  was  an  unheard-of  thing  that  a  Bishop,  Archbishop,  or 
Cardinal    should  be  persecuted,  until  the  Anglo-Noi-inans 


so  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

broiiglit  with  them  their  accursed  feudal  system,  and  ccm- 
centration  of  power  in  the  hands  of  the  king,  an  account  of 
which  I  shall  come  to  presently.  Bitterly  did  Laurence 
O'Toole  feel  it.  This  great  heroic,  patriotic  saint  of  Ire- 
land, when  he  went  to  England,  the  very  moment  he  arrived 
he  was  made  a  prisoner,  as  a  man  to  be  feared ;  for  the 
King  had  left  an  order,  that  whenever  he  was  found  in 
England,  the  Saint  should  never  be  allowed  to  set  his  foot 
in  Ireland  again.  And  this  is  the  man  that  was  sent  over 
as  the  apostle  of  morality  to  Ireland !  the  man  that  is  ac- 
cused of  violating  the  betrothed  wife  of  his  own  son^  Richard 
I. ! — the  man  whose  crimes  cannot  bear  repetition  ! — who  was 
believed  by  Europe  to  be  possessed  by  a  devil !  and  of  whom 
it  was  "wi'itten  that  when  he  got  into  a  fit  of  anger,  he  used 
to  tear  off  his  clothes,  and  sit  down  naked  on  the  ground, 
and  chew  straw  like  a  beast !  Is  it  likely  that  the  Pope, 
who  knew  him  so  well,  and  suffered  so  much  from  him,  sent 
him  to  Ireland  ; — the  murderer  of  Bishops,  the  robber  of 
churches,  and  the  destroyer  of  ecclesiastical  and  every  other 
form  of  liberty  that  came  before  him  ?  No,  no !  Never 
will  I  believe  that  the  Pope  of  Rome  was  so  short-sighted, 
so  blind,  so  unjust  as,  by  the  stroke  of  his  pen,  to  abolish 
and  destroy  the  liberties  of  the  most  faithful  people  that 
ever  bov/ed  down  in  allegiance  to  him. 

But  let  us  suppose  even  that  Pope  Adrian  gave  the  Bull. 
I  hold  still  that  it  was  of  no  account,  for  it  was  obtained  by 
false  pretences.  It  was  obtained  by  falsely  representing  to 
the  Po]De  that  the  Irish  were  in  a  state  of  ignorance  and  im- 
morality, v/hich  did  not  exist.  Secondly,  this  rescript  from 
the  Pope,  if  it  was  obtained,  was  obtained  under  a  lie,  and 
was  null  and  void,  being  obtained  under  false  pretences.  But 
more  than  this  ;  the  Pope  gave  Henry,  in  that  rescript,  only 
power  to  go  to  Ireland  and  fix  everything ;  to  do  everything 
for  the  glory  of  God  and  the  good  of  the  people.     Unless  he 


NORMAN  INVASION  AND  MISRULE.  31 

did  tliis  (and  be  never  did  it  and  never  intended  to  do  it,) 
the  rescript  was  null  and  void.  But  suppose  that  rescript 
had  actually  been  given;  what  power  did  it  give  Henry? 
Did  it  make  hiin  master  of  Ireland  ?  Did  it  give  him  power 
over  the  land  of  Ireland  ?  All  that  that  Bull  of  the  Pope 
says  is  that  he  should  do  what  is  necessary  for  the  glory  of 
God  and  the  good  of  the  people.  By  calling  on  the  Irish 
Chieftains  to  accept  Henry, — at  most  he  established  only 
what  is  called  a  *'  liaute  suzerainty  "  of  Ireland.  Now,  you 
must  know  that,  in  the  early  Middle  Ages,  there  were  two 
kinds  of  sovereignty ;  there  was  the  sovereign,  the  acknowl- 
edged head  of  the  people.  They  were  his,  and  he  governed 
tliem,  like  the  Kings  and  Emperors  of  to-day  in  Europe. 
But,  besides  this,  there  was  the  sovereign,  who  only  claimed 
the  title  of  King,  who  only  claimed  the  homage  of  the  Chief- 
tains of  the  land,  but  who  left  them  in  perfect  liberty,  and 
recognized  the  perfect  independence  of  the  land.  He  re- 
ceived the  tribute  of  their  homage  and  nothing  more.  This 
was  all  the  fealty  that  the  Pope  ever  permitted  Henry  to 
claim  in  Ireland,  if  lie  permitted  him  to  claim  so  much.  The 
proof  lies  here,  that,  when  Henry  came  over  to  Ireland,  he 
never  said  to  the  Irish  that  they  should  give  up  their  inde- 
pendence. Not  at  all.  On  the  contrary,  he  left  Roderic 
O'Conor  King  of  Connaught,  and  dealt  with  him  as  a  king 
with  his  fellow-king.  He  acknowledged  his  royalty  and  na- 
tionality ;  and  he  only  demanded  of  him  the  allegiance  and 
homage  of  a  feudal  prince  to  a  feudal  king,  leaving  him  as  a 
ruler  perfectly  independent. 

Again,  let  us  suppose  that  Henry  intended  to  conquer 
Ireland,  and  bring  it  into  slavery.  Did  he  succeed  ?  Noth- 
ing of  the  kind.  When  he  came  to  Ireland,  the  kings  and 
princes  of  the  Irish  people  said  to  him : — "  We  are  willing, 
to  acknowledge  your  high  sovereignty  over  us,  as  Lord  of 
Ireland.     We  are  the  owners  of  the  land.     You  are  the 


32  ENGLISH  MISRULE  m  IBELANB. 

Lord  of  Ireland  _;  and  there  is  an  end  of  it."  The  King  was 
acknowledged  by  the  j^eople  by  the  simple  title  of  "  Lord  of 
Ireland ;  "  nothing  more.  If  he  intended  anything  more — 
if  he  intended  to  invade  and  conquer  the  country,  he  never 
effected  his  purpose.  For  the  Normans,  for  centuries,  held 
only  that  part  of  Ireland  which  before  was  held  by  the 
Danes.  The  Irish,  v/ho  are  naturally  straightforward,  and 
always  generous,  in  the  hour  of  their  triumph  permitted  the 
Danes  to  remain  in  Dublin,  Wexford,  Wicklow,  and  Water- 
ford.  Consequently,  the  Danes  held  the  whole  of  the  eastern 
seaboard  towns.  From  the  Hill  of  Howth  round  to  Water- 
ford  harbor  Avas  in  their  possession.  The  Normans  who 
came  over  were  regarded  by  the  Irish  as  cousins  to  the 
Danes  ;  and  they  only  took  the  Danish  territory  ; — nothing 
more.  They  took  precisely  all  that  the  Danes  had  before ; 
all  that  the  Irish  had  given  to  the  Danes,  Avho  were  under- 
stood to  be  perfectly  independent.  At  most,  it  seems  to  us 
that  the  Irish  were  willing  to  share  the  land  with  them,  will- 
ing to  receive  them  v\^ith  a  certain  hospitality,  and  to  divide 
the  country  with  them. 

Now,  Mr.  Froude's  second  j  ustification  of  the  Norman  in- 
vasion is  that  Ireland  was  a  prey  to  the  Danes,  who  invaded 
the  island ;  and  that  the  Irish  were  rendered  ferocious  by 
tliese  continual  contests ;  leaving  the  impression  that  the 
Danish  wars  in  Ireland  v/ere  only  a  succession  of  ferocious 
individual  combats,  between  tribe  and  tribe,  between  man 
and  man ;  when  the  fact  is,  the  Danish  v/ars  were  magnifi- 
cent national  trials  of  strength,  between  two  of  tlie  bravest 
races  that  ever  met  each  other,  foot  to  foot  and  hand  to 
hand  on  the  battlefield.  The  Danes  were  unconquerable. 
They  conquered  the  Saxons  in  En^-land.  The  Frenchman 
in  France  w^as  unable  to  stand  his  ground  against  them. 
Still,  for  three  hundred  years,  the  Celt  of  Ireland  disputed 
every  inch  of  the  island  V7ith  them,  filled  every  valley  in  the 


NORMAI^  INVASION  AND  MISRULE.  33 

land  with  their  dead  bodies ;  and  at  last  drove  them  back 
into  the  North  Sea,  and  freed  his  native  land  from  their 
dominion  forever.  Yet  this  magnificent  national  contest  ir- 
represented  by  this  historian  as  a  mere  ferocious  onslaught, 
daily  renewed,  between  man  and  man,  in  Ireland  ! 

The  Norman  arrived :  and  we  have  seen  how  he  was 
received.  The  Butlers  and  Fitzgeralds  went  down  into  Kil- 
dare  ;  the  De  Burgs,  or  Burkes,  and  the  De  Berminghams 
went  down  into  the  province  of  Connaught.  The  people 
oflered  them  very  little  opposition.  They  gave  them  a  por- 
tion of  their  lands,  and  welcomed  them  amongst  them,  and 
began  to  love  them  as  if  they  were  their  own  flesh  and 
blood.  Now  the  Norman,  in  England,  hated  and  despised 
the  Saxons.  So  thoroughly  did  he  despise  them,  that  his 
name  for  the  Saxon  was  "  villein  "  or  "  churl."  He  did  not 
allow  the  Saxons  to  sit  at  the  same  table  with  him ;  and  he 
would  not  intermarry  with  the  Saxons  for  long  years.  The 
proud,  steel-clad  Normans,  ferocious  in  passion,  bold  as 
lions,  formed,  by  their  Crusades  and  Saracenic  wars,  to  be 
the  bravest  men  then  living  on  the  fiice  of  the  earth,  ne.'''<5ir 
allowed  the  Saxons  to  interfere  in  any  of  their  disj^utes. 
Gerald  Barry,  when  he  was  speaking  of  the  Saxons,  said  : 
"  I  am  a  Welshman,  and  I  am  proud  to  be  a  Welshman ; 
but  the  Saxons  are  the  vilest  and  basest  race  on  the  face  of 
the  earth."  I  am  only  giving  his  own  words  ;  I  do  not  say 
that  I  share  his  sentiments.  "  They  fought  one  battle,"  he 
goes  on  to  say:  "they  allowed  the  Normans  to  overcome 
them,  and  consented  to  be  slaves  forevermore  to  the  Nor- 
mans." And  he  wrote  a  book,  in  which  he  says,  that  they 
are  by  no  means  to  be  compared  to  the  Celtic  race  ;  "  not 
to  be  compared  in  bravery  or  in  intelligence  to  the  magnan- 
imous race  of  the  Celts."  Now,  the  Normans  went  down 
into  Ireland,  among  ih.Q  Irish  people.  When  they  went  out- 
side the  English  portion  of  the  country,  or  the  "  Pale,"  and 
2* 


34:  ENGLISH  MISRULE  m  IRELAND. 

got  amongst  the  Irish  people,  what  is  the  first  thing  that  wa 
see  ?  The  very  first  thing,  I  answer,  is  that  the  Normana 
began  to  forget  their  Norman-French  and  their  English,  and 
learned  to  talk  the  Irish.  They  took  Irish  wives  and  were 
glad  to  get  them,  they  adopted  Irish  names  and  Irish  customs ; 
until  we  find,  two  hundred  years  after  the  Norman  invasion, 
these  proud  descendants  of  William  FitzAdelm,  Earl  of 
Clanricarde,  changing  their  names  from  De  Burg,  or  Burke, 
to  McWilliam,  or  sons  of  William  ;  and  they  called  them- 
selves in  Irish,  "  McWilliam  Oughter,"  and  "  McWilliam 
Eighter,"  or  the  Upper  and  Lower  Mc Williams.  In  the 
days  of  Lionel,  Duke  of  Clarence,  they  called  themselves  by 
that  name,  and  adopted  the  Celtic  laws  and  Celtic  customs. 
Concerning  the  four  hundred  sad  years  that  followed  the 
Norman  invasion,  down  to  the  accession  of  Henry  VIII. , 
Mr.  Froude  has  nothing  to  say,  except  that  Ireland,  was  in 
a  constant  state  of  anarchy  and  confusion  ;  and  it  is  too 
true.  It  is  perfectly  true.  Chieftain  warred  against  chief- 
tain. It  was  comparative  peace  before  the  invasion;  but 
when  the  Normans  came  in,  they  divided  the  Irish  by  craft 
and  cunning.  The  ancient  historian  Strabo,  speaking  of 
the  Gael,  says :  "  The  Gauls  always  march  openly  to  their 
end,  and  they  are  therefore  easily  circumvented."  So  when 
the  Normans  came,  and  the  Saxons,  they  sowed  dissensions 
among  the  Irish  people.  They  stirred  them  up  against  each 
other,  and  the  bold,  hot  blood  of  the  Celt  was  always  ready 
to  engase  in  contest  and  in  war.  What  was  the  secret  of 
that  incessant  and  desolating  war?  There  is  no  history 
more  painful  to  read  than  the  history  of  the  Irish  people, 
from  the  day  that  the  Normans  landed,  until  the  day  when 
the  groat  issue  of  Protestantism  was  put  before  the  nation, 
and  v\7hen    Ireland,  for  the  first  time,  imited  as  one  man. 

My  friends,  the  true  secret  of  that  history  is 

the  constant  efibrt  of  the  English  to  force  upon  Ireland  the 


NORMAN  INVASION  AND  MISRULE.  35 

feudal  svbtem,  and  consequently  to  rob  the  Irish  of  every 
inch  of  their  land  and  to  externjinate  them.  I  lay  this 
down  as  the  one  secret,  the  one  thread  by  which  you  may 
unravel  the  tangled  skein  of  our  history  for  the  four  hun- 
dred years  that  follov/ed  the  Norman  invasion.  The  Nor- 
mans and  Saxons  came  ^vith  the  express  purpose  anc' 
design  of  taking  every  foot  of  land  in  Ireland  and  exter- 
minating the  Celtic  race.  It  is  an  awful  thing  to  think  of ; 
but  vve  have  the  evidence  of  history  for  the  fact.  Mrst  of 
all,  Henry  11.,  whilst  he  made  his  treaties  with  the  Irish 
kings,  secretl}^  divided  the  whole  of  Ireland  into  ten  por- 
tions, and  allotted  each  of  these  ten  portions  to  one  of  his 
Norman  knights.  In  a  word,  he  robbed  the  Irish  people 
and  the  Irish  chieftains  of  every  single  foot  of  land  in  the 
Irish  territory,  and  gave  it  to  the  Normans.  -  It  is  true 
they  were  not  able  to  take  possession.  It  was  as  if  a  mas- 
ter robber  were  to  divide  the  booty  before  it  is  taken.  It 
was  far  easier  to  assign  property  not  yet  stolen  than  to  put 
his  fellow-thieves  in  possession  of  it.  There  v^ere  Irish 
hands  and  Irish  battle-blades  in  the  way  for  many  a  long 
year ;  nor  has  it  been  accomplished  to  this  day. 

In  order  to  root  out  the  Celtic  race,  and  to  destroy  us, 
mark  the  measures  of  legislation  which  followed.  First  of 
all,  my  friends,  whenever  an  Englishman  was  put  in  pos- 
session of  an  acre  of  land,  he  got  the  right  to  trespass  upon 
his  Irish  neighbors',  and  to  take  their  land  as  far  as  he 
could  ;  and  they  had  no  action  in  a  court  of  law  to  recover 
their  land.  If  an  Irishman  brought  an  action  at  law  against 
an  Englishman  for  taking  half  of  his  field,  or  for  trespassing 
upon  his  land,  according  to  the  law,  from  the  beginning, 
that  Irishman  was  put  out  of  court ;  there  was  no  action ; 
the  Englishman  was  perfectly  justified  in  what  he  did. 
Worse  than  this ;  they  made  laws  declaring  that  the  killing 
of  an  Irishman  was  no  felony.     Sir  John  Davis,  Attorney. 


36  ENQLI8R  MISRULE  m  IRELAND. 

General,  in  the  time  of  James  I.,  tells  us  liow,  upon  a  cer- 
tain occasion,  at  Waterford,  in  the  29th  year  of  Edward  I., 
of  England,  a  certain  Edward  Butler  brought  an  action 
against  Robert  de  Almey  to  recover  certain  goods  that 
Robert  had  stolen  from  him.  The  case  was  brought  into 
court.  Robert  acknowledged  that  he  had  stolen  the  goods  ; 
that  he  was  a  thief.  The  defence  he  put  in  was  that  Ed- 
wa.rd,  the  man  he  had  plundered,  was  an  Irishman.  The  case 
was  tried.  Now,  my  friends,  just  think  of  it !  The  issue 
that  w^as  put  before  the  jury  was,  whether  Edward,  the 
plaintiff,  was  an  Irishman  or  an  Englishman.  The  jury 
found  that  Edward  was  an  Englishman.  That  was  enough  ; 
Robert,  the  thief,  was  obliged  to  give  back  the  goods.  But 
if  the  jury  found  that  Edward  was  an  Irishman  he  might 
keep  the  goods ; — there  was  no  action  against  him. 

We  find  upon  the  same  authority, — Sir  John  Davis, — a 
description  of  a  certain  jail-delivery  at  "Waterford,  where  a 
man  named  Robert  Walsh  had  killed  the  son  of  Ivor  Mc- 
Gilmore.  He  was  arraigned  and  tried  for  manslaughter; 
and,  v%^ithout  the  slightest  difiiculty,  acknowledged  it. 
"  Yes,"  he  said,  "  I  did  kill  him  ;  but  you  have  no  right  to 
try  me  for  it :  for  he  was  an  Irishman  !  "  Instantly  he  was 
let  out  of  the  dock,  on  condition — as  the  Irishman,  at  the 
time,  was  in  the  service  of  an  English  master — that  he 
shoiTld  pay  v/hatever  the  master  could  claim  for  the  loss  of 
his  services ;  whatever  was  their  value :  but  for  the  murder, 
he  was  let  go  scot-free.  "  Not  only,"  says  Sir  John  Davis, 
"  were  the  Irish  considered  aliens,  but  they  were  considered 
enemies  :  insomuch  that  though  an  Englishman  might  settle 
upon  an  Irishman's  land,  there  was  no  redress ;  but  if  an 
Irishman  wished  to  buy  an  acre  of  land  from  an  Englishman, 
he  could  not  do  it."  So  they  kept  the  land  they  had ;  and 
they  were  always  gaining  by  plunder.  They  could  steal; 
•while  we  could  not  even  buy. 


NOBMAJSr  INVASIOir  AND  MISRULE.  37 

If  any  man  made  a  will,  and  left  an  acre  of  land  to  aii 
Irishman,  the  moment  it  was  proved  that  he  was  an  Irish 
man,  the  land  was  forfeited  to  the  Crown  of  England — even 
if  it  was  only  left  in  trust  to  him :  of  which  we  have  two 
very  striking  examples.  We  read  that,  in  the  first  year  ol 
Henry  VI.,  a  certain  Edward  Butler,  of  Clonboyne,  in  the 
county  of  Meath,  left  some  lands  in  trust  for  charitable 
piu'poses  ;  and  he  left  them  to  his  two  chaplains,  Conor 
O'Mulrooney  and  John  McCann.  It  was  proved  that  the 
two  priests  were  Irishmen ;  and  though  the  land  was  left  to 
them  in  trust  for  charitable  purposes  it  was  forfeited  to  the 
Crown,  because  the  two  men  were  Irishmen.  Later,  a  cer- 
tain Mrs.  Catherine  Dowdall,  a  pious  woman,  made  a  will 
when  she  was  dying,  leaving  some  land,  near  Swords,  in  the 
county  of  Dublin,  to  a  priest  named  John  O'Bellane  :  and 
the  land  was  forfeited  to  the  Crown  because,  as  it  Y»'as  set 
forth,  "  the  said  John  O'Bellane  being  one  of  the  King's 
Irish  enemies." 

In  the  year  1367,  Lionel,  Duke  of  Clarence,  third  son  of 
Edward  III.,  came  to  Ireland  and  held  a  Parliament  in 
Kilkenny,  which  passed  certain  laws.  Some  of  these  laws 
were  as  folio v/s  :  "If  any  man  speak  the  Irish  language,  or 
be  found  keeping  company  with  the  Irish,  or  adopting  Irish 
customs,  his  lands  shall  be  taken  from  him  and  forfeited  to 
the  Crown  of  England."  If  an  Englishman  married  an  Irish 
woman,  what  do  you  think  was  the  penalty  ?  He  was  sen- 
tenced to  be  half  hanged ;  to  have  his  heart  cut  out  before 
he  was  dead ;  then  to  have  his  head  struck  off;  and  every 
rood  of  his  land  passed  to  the  Crown  of  England.  "  Thus," 
says  Sir  John  Davis,  the  great  English  authority,  "  it  is 
evident  that  the  constant  design  of  English  legislation  in 
Ireland  was  to  possess  the  Irish  land,  and  to  extirpate  and 
exterminate  the  Irish  people." 

Now,  citizens  of  America,  Mr.  Froude  came  here  to  appeal 


38  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

to  you  for  your  verdict ;  and  he  asks  you  to  say :  "  Was  not 
England  justified  in  her  treatment  of  Ireland,  because  the 
Irish  people  would  not  submit  ?  "  Now,  citizens  of  America, 
I  ask  you,  would  not  the  Irish  people  be  the  vilest  dogs  on 
the  face  of  the  earth  if  they  submitted  to  such  treatment  as 
this  ?  Would  they  be  worthy  of  the  name  of  men,  if  they 
submitted  to  be  robbed,  plundered,  and  degraded  ?  It  is  true 
that,  in  all  this  legislation,  we  see  the  same  spirit  of  con- 
tempt of  which  I  sj)oke  in  the  beginning  of  my  lecture.  But 
remember  who  it  was  that  these  Saxon  churls  were  thus 
despising ;  and  ask  yourselves  w^hat  race  was  it  they  treated 
wath  so  much  contumely  and  so  much  contempt,  and  at- 
tempted in  every  way  to  degrade,  whilst  they  were  ruining 
and  robbing  them  ?  What  race  were  they  ?  Gerald  Barry, 
speaking <-»f  the  Irish  race,  says  the  Irish  came  from  the  grand- 
est race  that  he  knew  of  on  this  side  of  the  world,  "  and  there 
are  no  better  people  under  the  sun."  By  the  v/ord  "  better," 
he  meant  more  valiant  or  more  intellectual.  Those  who 
came  over  from  England,  by  even  the  English  who  went  be- 
fore them,  were  called  Saxon  hogs,  or  churls,  while  the  Irish 
called  them  hodacli  Sassenagh.  These  were  the  men  who 
showed,  in  the  very  system  by  which  they  w^ere  governed,  that 
they  could  not  understand  the  nature  of  a  people  who  refused 
to  be  slaves.  They  were  slaves  themselves.  Consider  the 
history  of  the  feudal  system  under  which  they  lived.  Accord- 
ing to  the  feudal  system  of  government,  the  King  of  England 
was  lord  of  every  inch  of  land  in  England.  Every  foot  of 
land  in  England  was  the  king's  ;  and  the  nobles,  who  had 
the  land,  held  it  from  the  king — but  they  held  it  under  feu- 
dal conditions,  the  most  degrading  that  can  be  imagined. 
For  instance  :  if  a  man  died  and  left  his  heir,  a  son  or 
daughter,  under  age,  the  heir  or  heiress,  together  with  the 
estate,  went  into  the  hands  of  the  king.  He  might  perhaps 
leave  a  widow,  with  ten  children.     She  would  have  to  sup- 


yOBMAJSr  INVASION  AND  MISRULE.  39 

port  all  the  children  herself,  whatever  way  she  could,  out  of 
her  dower ;  but  the  estate  and  the  eldest  son  or  the  eldest 
daughter  went  into  the  hands  of  the  king.  Then  during  the 
minority  of  the  heir,  the  king  could  spend  the  revenues  or 
rent  of  the  estate,  without  the  knowledge  of  any  one,  or 
could  sell  the  castle  and  the  estate,  and  no  one  could  demand 
an  account  of  him ;  and  when  the  son  or  daughter  came  of 
age,  he  then  sold  them  in  marriage  to  the  highest  bidder. 
"We  have  Godfrey  de  Mandeville  buying  for  twenty  thou- 
sand marks,  from  King  John,  the  hand  of  Isabella,  Countess 
of  Gloster.  We  have  Isabella  de  Lingera,  another  heiress, 
ofiering  a  liundred  marks  to  King  John — for  what  do  you 
think  ? — for  liberty  to  marry  whoever  she  liked,  and  not  to  be 
obliged  to  marry  the  man  he  would  give  her  to. 
If  a  widow  lost  her  husband,  the  moment  the  breath  was  out 
of  him,  the  lady  and  the  estate  passed  to  the  king;  and  he 
might  squander  the  estate,  or  do  whatever  he  liked  with  it ; 
and  then  he  could  sell  the  widow.  AVe  have  a  curious  ex- 
ample of  this.  We  have  Alice,  Countess  of  Warwick,  pay- 
ing King  John  one  thousand  pounds  sterling,  in  gold,  for 
leave  to  remain  a  widow  as  long  as  she  liked.  This  was  the 
slavery  called  the  feudal  system,  of  which  Mr.  Froude  is  so 
proud,  and  of  which  he  says :  "It  lay  at  the  root  of  all  that 
is  noble  and  good  in  Europe."  The  Irish  could  not  stand  it, 
— small  blame  to  them  !  But  when  the  Irish  people  found 
that  they  were  to  be  hunted  down  like  wolves, — found  their 
lands  were  to  be  taken  from  them,  and  that  there  was  no 
redress, — over  and  over  again  the  Irish  people  sent  petitions 
to  the  King  of  England,  to  give  them  the  benefit  of  English 
law,  and  they  v/ould  be  amenable  to  it.  But  they  were 
denied,' and  told  that  they  should  remain  as  they  were:  that 
is  to  say,  England  was  determined  to  exterminate  them,  and 
get  every  foot  of  Irish  soil.  This  is  the  one  leading  idea  or 
principle  which  animated  England  in  her  treatment  of  Ire- 


40  ENGLISH  MISRULE^IN  IRELAND. 

land  throughout  those  four  liundred  years,  and  it  is  the  only 
clue  you  can  find  to  that  turmoil  and  misery,  and  constant 
fighting  which  Avas  going  on  in  Ireland  during  that  period. 

Sir  James  Cusack,  an  English  commissioner  sent  over  by 
Henry  VIII.,  wrote  to  his  Majesty  these  quaint  words: 
"  The  Irish  be  of  opinion  amongst  themselves  that  the  'FiW^ 
lish  wish  to  get  all  their  lands,  and  to  root  them  out  com 
pletely."  He  just  struck  the  nail  on  the  head.  Mr.  Eroude 
himself  acknowledges  that  the  land  question  lay  at  the  root 
of  the  whole  business.  Nay,  more,  the  feudal  system  would 
have  handed  over  every  inch  of  land  in  Ireland  to  the  Norman 
king  and  his  Norman  nobles  ;  and  the  O'Briens,  the  O'Neills, 
the  O'Donnells,  and  the  O'Conors,  were  of  more  ancient  and 
better  blood  than  that  of  William,  the  bastard  Norman. 

The  Saxon  might  submit  to  feudal  law,  and  be 

crushed  into  a  slave,  a  clod  of  the  earth ;  the  Celt  never  would. 
England's  great  mistake — I  believe,  in  my  soul,  that  the  great 
mistake,  of  all  others  the  greatest, — lay  in  this,  that  the  Eng- 
lish people  never  realized  the  fact  that,  in  dealing  with  the 
Irish,  they  had  to  deal  with  the  proudest  race  on  the  face  of 
the  earth. 

During  all  these  years  the  Norman  nobles,  the  Ormondes, 
the  Desmonds,  the  Geraldines,  the  De  Burghs,  were  at  the 
head  and  front  of  every  rebellion.  The  English  complained 
of  them,  and  said  they  were  worse  than  the  Irish  rebels ; 
that  they  were  constantly  stirring  up  disorders.  Do  you 
know  the  reason  why?  Because  they,  as  Normans,  were 
under  the  feudal  laws,  and  therefore  the  king's  sherifis  could 
come  down  on  them,  at  every  turn,  with  fines  and  forfeitures 
of  the  land  held  from  the  king.  So,  by  keeping  the  country 
ill  disorder,  they  were  always  able  to  defy  the  sheriffs ;  and 
they  preferred  the  Irish  freedom  to  the  English  feudalism : 
therefore,  they  fomented  and  kept  up  these  discords.  It 
was  the  boast  of  my  kinsmen  of  Clanricarde  that,  Avitli  the 


NORMAN  INVASION  AND  MISRULE.  41 

blessing  of  God,  tliey  -^voultl  never  allow  a  king's  writ  to 
run  in  Connauglit.  Dealing  with  this  period  of  our  history, 
Mr.  Froude  says  that  the  Irish  Chieftains,  and  their  septs  or 
tribes,  were  doing  this  or  that — the  Geraldines,  the  Des- 
monds, and  the  Ormondes.  I  say,  slowly,  Mr.  Froude ;  the 
Geraldines  and  the  Ormondes  were  not  Irish  Chieftains ;  so 
do  not  father  their  acts  upon  the  Irish ;  the  Irish  Chieftains 
have  enough  to  ansv/er  for,  during  these  four  hundred  years. 
I  protest  to  you  that,  in  this  most  melancholy  period  of  our 
sad  history,  I  have  found  but  two  casea,  two  instances,  tliat 
cheer  me  ;  and  both  were  the  action  of  Irish  Chieftains.  In 
one  we  find  that  Turlough  O'Conor  put  away  his  wife;  she 
was  one  of  the  O'Briens.  Theobald  Burke,  one  of  the  Earls 
of  Clanricarde,  lived  in  open  adultery  with  the  v/oman. 
With  the  spirit  of  their  heroic  ancestors,  the  Irish  Chieftains 
of  Connauglit  came  together,  deposed  him,  and  drove  him  out 
of  the  place.  Later  on,  we  find  another  Chieftain,  Brian 
McMahon,  who  induced  Sorley  McDonnell,  chief  of  the 
Hebrides,  or  Western  Islands,  to  put  away  his  lawful  wife, 
and  marry  a  da,ughter  of  his  own.  The  follov/ing  year  they 
fell  out;  and  McMahon  drowned  his  own  son-in-law.  The 
chiefs,  O'Donnell  and  CNeill,  came  together  with  their 
forces,  and  deposed  McMahon,  in  the  cause  of  virtue,  honor, 
and  womanhood.  I  have  looked  in  vain  through  these  four 
hundred  years  for  one  single  trait  of  generosity  or  of  the 
assertion  of  virtue  among  the  Anglo-Norman  chiefs ;  and 
the  dark  picture  is  only  relieved  by  these  two  gleams  of  Irish 
patriotism  and  Irish  zeal  in  the  cause  of  purity  and  of  out 
ragci  honor. 

Now,  Mr.  Froude  opened  another  question  in  his  first  lect- 
ure. He  said  that,  during  all  this  time,  while  the  English 
monarchs  were  engaged  in  trying  to  subjugate  Scotland,  and 
trying  to  subdue  their  Fi-ench  Provinces,  the  Irish  were  rap- 
idly gaining  ground,  hemming  the  English  in,  and  crippling 


42  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

tlie  Pale,  year  by  year.  Tlie  Englisli  power  in  Ireland  was 
frequently  almost  anniliilatecl ;  and  the  only  thing  that  saved 
it  was  the  love  of  the  Irish  for  their  own  independent  way 
of  fighting,  which,  though  favorable  to  freedom,  was  hostile 
to  national  unity.  He  says,  speaking  of  that  time,  "  Would 
it  not  have  been  better  to  have  allowed  the  Irish  Chieftains 
to  govern  their  own  people  ?  Freedom  to  whom  ? — freedom 
to  the  bad,  to  the  violent !  It  is  no  freedom  !  "  I  deny  thai, 
the  Irish  Chieftains,  with  all  their  faults,  were,  as  a  class, 
bad  men  or  violent  men.  I  deny  that  they  were  engaged, 
as  Mr.  Froude  says,  in  cutting  their  peoples'  throats ;  that 
they  were  a  people  who  would  never  be  satisfied.  Mr,  Froude 
tells  us  emphatically  and  significantly,  that  "  the  Irish  people 
were  satisfied  with  their  Chieftains;"  but  the  people  are 
not  satisfied  if  their  throats  are  being  cut.  The  Irish  Chief- 
tains were  the  bane  of  Ireland  b}^  their  divisions ;  the  Irish 
Chieftains  were  the  ruin  of  their  country  by  their  want  of 
anion,  and  want  of  generous  acquiescence  in  the  rule  of 
some  great  and  noble  head  that  would  save  them  by  uniting 
them.  The  Irish  Chieftains,  even  in  the  days  of  the  heroic 
Edward  Bruce,  did  not  rally  around  him  as  they  ought.  In 
their  divisions  is  the  secret  of  Ireland's  slavery  and  ruin 
through  those  years.  But  with  all  that,  history  attests  that 
they  were  still  magnanimous  enough  to  be  the  fathers  of 
their  people,  and  to  be  the  natural  leaders,  as  God  intended 
them  to  be,  of  their  septs,  families,  and  namesakes.  And 
they  struck  whatever  blows  they  did  strike,  in  what  they 
imagined  to  be  the  cause  of  right,  justice,  and  liberty;  and 
the  only  blow  that  came  in  the  cause  of  outraged  purity, 
came  from  an  Irish  hand,  in  those  dark  and  terrible  years. 

I  will  endeavor  to  follow  this  gentleman  in  his  subsequent 
lectures.  Now  a  darker  cloud  than  that  of  mere  invasion  is 
lowering  over  tlie  horizon  of  Ireland ;  now  comes  the  demon 
of  religious  discord — waving  the  sword  of  religious  persecu- 


NOBMAN'  IJSfVASION'  AND  MISRULE.  43 

tion  over  the  distracted  and  exhausted  land.  And  ^ve  shall 
see  whether  this  historian  has  entered  into  the  spirit  of  the 
great  contest  that  followed,  and  that,  in  our  day,  has  ended 
in  a  glorious  victory  for  Ireland's  Church ;  which  will  be 
followed,  as  assuredly,  by  a  still  more  glorious  victory  foi 
Ireland's  Il^ationality. 


seco:nd  lectuee. 

{Delivered  at  tlie  Academy  of  Ilimc,  Nac  Yorlc^  Nov.  14,  187.3.) 

THE    TUDORS    IX    IRELAND. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen  :  We  now  come  to  consider  tlie 
second  lectnre  of  the  eminent  English  historian  who  has 
come  amongst  us.  It  covers  one  of  the  most  interesting 
and  terrible  passages  in  our  history.  It  takes  in  three 
reigns, — the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.,  the  reign  of  Elizabeth, 
and  the  reign  of  James  I. :  I  scarcely  consider  the  reigns 
of  Edward  YI.  and  of  Fhilip  and  Mary  v/orth  counting. 
The  learned  gentleman  began  his  second  lecture  with  a 
rather  startling  paradox.  He  asserted  that  Henry  YIII. 
was  a  hater  of  disorder.  Now,  my  friends,  every  man  in 
this  world  has  a  hero.  AVhether  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously, every  man  selects  out  of  history  some  character  or 
other  which  he  admires :  until  at  length,  from  constantly 
thinking  of  the  vii'tues  and  excellences  of  his  hero,  he 
comes  almost  to  worship  liim.  Before  us  all  lie  the  gi-and 
historic  names  that  are  written  upon  the  world's  annals  : 
and  every  man  is  free  to  select  the  character  that  he  likes 
best,  and  to  choose  his  hero.  Using  this  privilege,  Mr. 
Fro-  de  has  made  the  most  singular  selection  of  his  hero 
,that  ever  you  or  I  heard  of:  his  hero  is  Henry  VIII.  It 
speaks  volumes  for  the  integrity  of  Mr.  Fronde's  own  mind ; 
it  is  a  strong  argument  that  he  possesses  a  charity  the  most 
sublime,  when  he  has  been  enabled  to  discover  virtues  in 
the  historical  character  of  one  of  the  greatest  monsters  that 


THE  TUD0E8  IN  IRELAND.  45 

ever  cursed  tlie  earth.  He  has,  however,  succeeded  in  this, 
which,  to  us,  aj^pears  an  impossibility.  And  he  has  discov- 
ered, amongst  many  other  shining  virtues  in  the  characte* 
of  the  English  Nero,  a  great  love  for  order,  and  a  great 
hatred  of  disorder.  "Well,  we  must  stop  at  the  very  first  sen- 
tence of  the  learned  gentleman,  and  try  to  analyze  it,  and  see 
how  much  there  is  of  truth  in  this  word  of  the  historian,  and 
how  much  there  is  which  is  only  an  honorable,  and,  to  him, 
a  truthful  figment  of  his  imagination. 

All  order  in  the  State  is  based  upon  three  grand  principles, 
my  friends,  namely, — the  supremacy  of  the  law ;  the  respect 
for,  and  the  liberty  of,  conscience ;  and  a  tender  regard  for 
that  which  lies  at  the  fountain-head  of  all  human  society, 
namely, — the  sanctity  of  the  marriage-tie.  The  first  element 
of  order  in  every  State  is  the  supremacy  of  the  law.  In  this 
supremacy  lies  the  very  quintessence  of  human  freedom,  and 
of  all  order.  The  law  is  supposed  to  be  (according  to  the 
definition  of  Aquinas),  the  judgment  pronounced  by  profound 
reason  and  intellect,  thinking  and  legislating  for  the  public 
good.  The  law,  therefore,  is  the  expression  of  reason; — ■ 
reason  backed  by  authority ;  reason  influenced  by  the  noble 
motive  of  the  public  good.  This  being  the  nature  of  law,  the 
very  first  thing  that  wq  demand  for  this  law  is  that  every 
man  bow  down  to  it  and  obey  it.  No  man  in  the  community 
can  claim  exemption  from  obedience  to  the  law ;  least  of  all, 
the  man  who  is  at  the  head  of  the  community  ;  because  he  is 
supposed  to  represent,  before  the  nation,  that  principle  of 
obedience,  without  which  all  national  order  and  happiness 
perish  among  the  people.  Was  Henry  YIII.  an  upholder  of 
law?  Was  he  obedient  to  the  law  ?  I  deny  it :  and  I  have  the 
evidence  of  all  history  to  back  me  up  in  the  denial.  I  brand 
Henry  YIII.  as  one  of  the  greatest  enemies  of  freedom  and 
of  law  that  ever  lived  in  this  world ;  consequently  one  of 
the  greatest  promoters  of  disorder.     I  will  only  give  you 


46  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

one  example ;  out  of  ten  tlionsand,  I  have  only  selected  one, 
Wlien  Henry  broke  with  the  Pope,  he  called  upon  his  sub- 
jects to  acknowledge  him — bless  the  mark! — as  the  spiritual 
head  of  the  Church.  There  were  three  Abbots  of  three 
charter-houses  in  London, — namely,  the  Abbot  of  London 
proper,  the  Abbot  of  Axiolam,  and  the  Abbot  of  Bellival. 
These  three  men  refused  to  acknowledge  Henry  as  the 
supreme  spiritual  head  of  the  Church.  He  had  them  ar- 
rested, liad  them  tried,  and  had  a  jury  of  twelve  citizens  of 
London  to  ait  upon  them.  Now,  the  first  princij^le  of  Eng- 
lish law,  the  grand  palladium  of  English  legislation  and 
freedom,  is  the  perfect  liberty  of  the  jury.  The  jury,  in 
any  trial,  must  be  perfectly  free:  not  only  free  from  all 
coercion  from  v/ithout,  but  free  even  from  any  prejudice. 
They  must  be  free  from  any  prejudging  of  the  case;  must 
be  perfectly  impartial,  and  perfectly  free  to  record  their  ver- 
dict. These  twelve  men  refused  to  convict  the  three  Ab- 
bots of  high  treason  ;  and  tliey  grounded  their  refusal  upon 
this :  "  Never,"  they  said,  "  has  it  been  heard  in  England 
that  it  was  high  treason  to  deny  the  spiritual  supremacy  of 
the  king.  It  is  not  lav/;  and,  therefore,  we  cannot  find 
these  men  guilty  of  high  treason."  What  did  Henry  do  ? 
He  sent  word  to  the  jury  that  if  they  did  not  find  the  three 
Abbots  guiUy,  he  would  visit  them  with  the  same  penalties 
that  he  had  prepared  for  their  prisoners  !  He  sent  word  to 
the  jury  that  they  should  find  them  guilty !  I  brand  him, 
therefore,  as  having  torn  in  pieces  the  charter  of  English 
liberty.  Magna  Charta,  and  as  having  trampled  upon  the 
first  grand  element  of  English  law  and  jurisprudence, 
namely,  the  liberty  of  the  jury.  Citizens  of  America! 
would  you,  any  one  of  you,  like  to  be  tried  by  a  jury,  if 
you  knew  that  the  President  of  the  United  States  had 
informed  that  jury  that  they  were  bound  to  find  you  guilty 
or  else  he  would  put  them  to  death  ?     WJiere  would  there 


THE  TUDORS  AY  IRELAND.  47 

be  liberty, — where  would  tliere  be  law, — if  sucli  a  transac- 
tion were  permitted?  And  this  was  the  action  of  Mr. 
Fronde's  great  admirer  of  order — his  hero,  Henry  YIII. 

The  second  grand  element  of  order  is  respect  for  con- 
science. The  conscience  of  a  man,  and  consequently  of  a 
nation,  is  supposed  to  be  the  great  guide  in  all  the  relations 
in  which  the  people  or  the  individual  stand  to  God.  The 
conscience  of  man  is  so  free  that  the  Almighty  God  Himself 
respects  it ;  and  it  is  a  theological  axiom  that  if  a  man  does 
a  wrong  act,  thinking  he  is  doing  right,  the  Avrong  will  not 
be  attributed  to  him  by  Almighty  God.  Was  this  man  a 
respecter  of  conscience  ?  Again,  out  of  ten  thousand  acts  of 
his,  I  Aviil  select  one.  He  ordered  the  people  of  England  to 
change  their  religion ;  ordered  them  to  give  up  that  grand 
system  of  dogmatic  teaching  which  is  in  the  Catholic  Church, 
where  every  man  knows  v/hat  to  believe  and  what  to  do. 
And  what  religion  did  he  ofier  them  instead  ?  He  did  not  ofi'er 
them  Protestantism,  for  Henry  YIII. never  v/as  a  Protestant; 
and,  to  the  last  day  of  his  life,  if  he  could  only  have  laid 
his  hands  on  Martin  Luther,  he  would  have  made  a  toast  of 
him.  He  heard  Mass  up  to  the  day  of  his  death ;  and  after 
his  death  there  was  a  solemn  High  Mass  over  his  inflated 
corpse, — a  solemn  High  Mass,  that  the  Lord  might  have 
mercy  on  his  soul.  Ah !  my  friends,  some  otlier  poor  soul, 
I  suppose,  got  the  benefit  of  that  Mass.  What  religion  did 
he  offer  the  people  of  England?  He  simply  came  before 
them  and  said  :  "  Let  every  man  in  the  land  agree  with  me; 
whatever  I  say,  that  is  religion."  More  than  this,  his  Par- 
liament, a  slavish  Parliament, — every  man  afraid  of  his  life, 
— passed  a  law  making  it  high  treason  not  only  to  disagree 
with  the  King  in  anything  that  he  believed,  but  making 
it  high  treason  for  any  man  to  dispute  anything  that  the 
King  should  ever  believe  in  the  future  time.  He  was  not 
only  the  enemy  of  conscience ;   he  was  the  annihilator  of 


48  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

conscience.  He  would  allow  no  man  to  liave  a  conscience. 
"  I  am  your  conscience,"  lie  said  to  the  nation  ;  "  I  am  your 
infallible  guide  in  all  things  that  you  are  to  believe,  and  in 
all  things  that  you  are  to  do  ;  and  if  any  man  sets  up  his 
own  conscience  against  me,  that  man  is  guilty  of  high  trea- 
son, and  I  will  stain  my  hands  in  his  heart's  blood."  This 
is  the  great  lover  of  order  ! 

The  third  great  element  of  order  is  that  upon  which  all 
society  is  based.  The  great  key-stone  of  the  arch  of  society 
is  the  sanctity  of  the  marriage  tie.  Whatever  else  is  inter- 
fered with,  that  must  not  be  touched ;  for  Christ,  our  Lord, 
has  said,  "  Those  that  God  has  joined  together  let  no  man  put 
asunder."  A  valid  marriage  can  only  be  dissolved  by  the 
angel  of  death.  No  power  in  heaven  or  on  earth — much 
less  in  hell — can  dissolve  the  validity  of  a  marriage.  Henry 
VIII.  had  so  little  respect  for  the  sanctity  of  the  marriage 
tie  that  he  brutally  put  away  from  him  a  woman  to  whom 
he  was  lawfully  married,  and  took  in  her  stead  (while  she 
was  yet  living,)  a  woman  who  was  supposed  to  be  his  own 
daughter.  He  married  six  wives.  Two  of  them  he  repudi- 
ated— divorced  ;  two  of  them  he  beheaded  ;  one  of  them 
died  in  childbirth ; — and  the  sixth  and  last  one — Mistress 
Catherine  Parr — had  her  name  down  in  Henry's  book,  at 
the  time  of  his  death,  in  the  list  of  his  victims;  and  she 
would  have  had  her  head  cut  off,  if  the  monster  had  lived 
for  a  few  days  longe-r.  This  is  all  matter  of  history.  And 
now,  I  ask  the  American  public,  is  it  fair  for  Mr.  Froude, 
or  any  other  living  man,  to  present  himself  before  an  Amer- 
ican audience, — an  aiulience  of  enlightened  and  cultivated 
people,  that  have  read  history  as  well  as  the  English  histo- 
rian, and  ask  them  to  swallow  the  absurd  paradox  that  Henry 
VIII.  was  an  admirer  of  order  and  a  hater  of  disorder. 

But  Mr.  Froude  says :  "  Now,  this  is  not  fair.  I  said  in 
my  lecture  that  I  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  Henry's 


TUB  TUnOllS  IJY  IRELAND.  AQ 

matrimonial  transactions."  All !  Mr.  Fronde,  yon  were 
\Yise.  "  But  at  least,"  he  says,  "  in  his  relations  to  Ireland, 
I  claim  that  he  was  a  hater  of  disorder  ; "  and  the  proof  he 
gives  is  the  following :  Fii-st  of  all  he  says  that  one  of  the 
curses  of  Ireland  was  absenteeism, — the  absentee  landlords  ; 
and  he  is  right.  Now,  Henry,  he  says,  put  an  end  to  that 
business  in  the  simplest  way  imaginable  ;  he  took  the  estates 
away  from  the  absentees  and  gave  them  to  other  people. 
My  friends,  it  sounds  well,  very  plausible — this  saying  of 
the  English  historian.  Let  us  analyze  it  a  little.  During 
the  "  Wars  of  the  Roses,"  between  the  Houses  of  York  and 
Lancaster,  which  j^i'eceded  the  Keformation  in  England, 
many  of  the  English  families  and  Anglo-Norman  families 
that  were  settled  in  Ireland,  went  over  to  England  and 
joined  in  the  conflict.  It  Avas  an  English  question  and  an 
English  war  ;  and  the  consequence  was  that  numbers  of  the 
English  settlers  retired  from  Ii'eland  and  left  their  estates, 
— abandoned  them  entirely.  Others  again, — from  disgust,  or 
because  they  had  large  English  properties, — preferred  to 
live  in  their  own  country,  and  retired  from  Ireland  to  live 
in  England.  So  that,  when  Henry  "VIII.  came  to  the 
throne  of  England,  the  English  "Pale,"  as  it  was  called, 
comprised  only  about  one-half  of  the  counties  of  Louth, 
Westmeath,  Dublin,  Wicklov/,  and  Wexford, — nothing 
more ;  only  one-half  of  each  of  these  counties.  Henry,  ac- 
cording to  Mr.  Froude,  performed  a  great  act  of  justice, 
when  he  took  from  these  absentees  their  estates,  and  gave 
them — to  whom  ?  To  other  Englishmen,  his  own  favorites 
and  friends.  Now,  the  historical  fact  is  this,  that,  as  soon 
as  the  English  retired,  and  abandoned  their  estates,  the  Irish 
people  came  in  and  repossessed  themselves  of  their  own  prop- 
erty. Mark,  my  friends,  that  even  if  the  Irish  people  had 
no  title  to  that  property,  the  very  fact  of  the  English  having 
abandoned  it  gave  them  a  sufficient  title;  becausCj  ^^  bona 


50  ENGLISH  MISBULE  IJSf  IRELAND. 

derellcta  sunt  prcemia  cajnentis^'' — ^tliat  is  to  say,  things  that 
are  abandoned  belong  to  the  man  that  first  gets  hold  of 
them.  But  much  more  just  was  the  title  of  the  Irish  peoj)le 
to  that  land,  because  it  was  their  own,  because  they  W€-re 
unjustly  dispossessed  of  it  by  the  very  men  who  abandoned 
it  now.  And  therefore  they  came  in  with  a  twofold  title, 
namely,  "the  land  is  ours  because  there  is  nobody  to  claim  it, 
the  owner  having  retired  ;  and  even  if  there  were,  the  land 
is  ours  because  it  v/as  always  ours,  and  we  never  lost  our 
right  to  it."  When,  therefore,  Henry  YIII.,  the  "  lover  of 
order,"  dispossessed  the  absentees  of  their  estates,  and  sent 
over  other  Englishmen,  and  handed  over  these  estates  to 
men  who  would  live  in  Ireland,  and  on  the  land,  Mr.  Froude 
claims  great  credit  for  him,  and  says,  that  in  so  doing  he 
acted  well  for  the  Irish  people.  But  the  doing  of  this  in- 
volved the  driving  of  the  Irish  people  a  second  time  out  of 
their  own  property.  That  was  the  whole  secret  of  Henry's 
wonderful  beneficence  to  Ireland,  in  giving  us  "resident 
landlords  !  "  Just  picture  it  to  yourselves,  in  this  way,  my 
friends.  There  are  a  great  many  here  who  are  owners  of 
property, — I  sujDpose  the  most  of  you.  Just  suppose  the 
Government  of  the  United  States,  or  the  President,  turning 
you  out  of  your  property,  taking  your  houses  and  lots  and 
lands  from  you,  and  giving  them  to  some  friend  of  his  own ; 
and  then  saying  to  you  :  "  Nov/,  my  friend,  you  must  re- 
member, I  am  a  lover  of  order  ;  I  am  giving  you  '  a  resident 
landlord  ! '  " 

Henry,  as  soon  as  he  ascended  the  throne,  sent  over  the 
Earl  of  Surrey,  in  the  year  1520.  Surrey  was  a  brave  sol- 
,  dier,  a  stern,  rigorous  man  ;  and  Henry  thought  that,  by 
sending  him  over,  and  backing  him  with  a  grand  army,  he 
would  be  able  to  repress  the  disordered  elements  in  the  Irish 
nation.  That  disorder  reigned  in  Ireland,  I  am  the  first  to 
admit ;  but  in  tracing  that  disorder  to  its  cause,  I  claim  that 


THE  TUDOMS  m  IRELAND.  51 

fclie  cause  was  not  in  any  inherent  love  for  disorder  in  the 
Irish  character,  though  they  were  always  very  fond  of  a 
fight;  I  admit  that  attribute; — but  I  hold  and' claim  thai 
the  great  cause  of  all  the  disorder  and  turmoil  of  Ireland 
was,  first,  the  strange  and  inhuman  legislation  of  England 
for  four  hundred  years  previously  ;  and  secondly,  the  pres- 
ence of  the  Anglo-Norman  lords  in  Ireland,  who  fostered 
and  kept  up  disturbances  in  the  country  in  order  that  they 
might  have  an  excuse  for  not  paying  their  feudal  dues  and 
duties  to  the  king. 

Surrey  came  over  and  tried  the  strong  hand  for  a  time ; 
but  he  found, — brave  as  he  was,  and  accomplished  General 
as  he  was, — he  found  that  the  Irish  were  a  little  too  many 
for  him  ;  and  he  sent  word  to  Henry :  "  This  people  can 
only  be  subdued  by  conquering  them  utterly, — by  going  in 
amongst  them  with  fire  and  sword.  And  this  you  will  not 
be  able  to  do  because  the  country  is  too  large,  and  so  geo- 
graphically difficult,  that  it  is  impossible  for  an  army  to  pen- 
etrate into  its  fastnesses,  to  subjugate  the  whole  population." 
Then  it  was  that  Henry  took  up  the  policy  of  conciliation 
• — v/hen  he  could  not  help  it.  Mr.  Froude  makes  it  a  great 
virtue  in  this  monarch  that  he  endeavored  to  conciliate  the 
Irish.     He  did  it  because  he  could  not  help  it. 

And  now,  my  friends,  there  is  one  passage  in  the  corre- 
spondence between  Surrey  and  Henry  the  Eighth  that  speaks 
volumes  ;  and  it  is  this  :  When  the  Earl  of  Surrey  arrived 
in  Ireland  he  found  himself  in  the  midst  of  war  and  confu- 
sion. But  the  people  who  v/ere  really  at  the  source  of  all 
that  confusion  he  declares  to  be  not  so  much  the  Irish,  or 
their  Chieftains,  as  the  Anglo-Norman  and  English  lords  in 
Ireland.  Here  is  the  passage  in  question.  There  were  two 
Chieftains  of  the  McCarthys, — Conor  Og  McCarthy  and 
McCarthy  Ruadh,  or  the  Red  McCarthy.  Surrey  wrote  of 
these  two  men,  to  Henry  VIII.,  and  ho  says : — "  These  are 


52  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

tvfo  wise  men,  and  more  conformable  to  order  than  some  of 
the  Englishmen  here."  Thus  out  of  the  lips  of  one  of  Ire- 
land's bitterest  enemies,  I  take  the  answer  to  Mr,  Fronde's 
repeated  assertion  that  we  Irish  are  so  disorderly,  and  such 
lovers  of  turmoil  and  confusion,  that  the  only  way  to  reduce 
us  to  order  is  to  sweep  us  away  altogether. 

The  next  feature  of  Surrey's  policy,  when  he  found  he 
could  not  conquer  Ireland  with  the  sword,  was  to  set  Chief- 
tain against  Chieftain.  And  so  he  writes  to  Henry: — "I 
am  endeavoring,"  he  says,  "to  perpetuate  the  animosity  be- 
tween O'Donnell  and  O'Neill  in  Ulster."  Here  are  his 
words  : — "  It  would  be  dangerful  to  have  them  both  agree 
and  join  together."  It  would  be  dangerous!  Well  might 
jMr.  Fronde  say,  that,  in  the  day  in  which  we,  Irish,  shall 
be  united,  we  shall  be  invincible,  and  no  power  on  earth 
shall  keep  us  slaves.  "  It  Avould  be  dangerful  to  have  them 
both  join  together;  and  the  longer  they  continue  at  war,  the 
better  it  will  be  for  your  Grace's  subjects  here."  Now, 
mark  the  spirit  of  that  letter,  and  you  mark  the  whole  geni- 
us of  England's  treatment  of  Ireland.  He  was  not  speak- 
ing of  the  Irish  as  subjects  of  the  King  of  England.  He 
has  not  the  slightest  consideration  for  the  unfortunate  Irish, 
whom  he  was  pitting  against  each  other.  "  Let  them  bleed," 
he  says ;  "  the  longer  they  continue  at  war, — the  grea,ter 
number  of  them  that  are  swept  away, — the  better  it  will  be 
for  your  Grace's  subjects  here.".  The  spirit  of  the  legisla- 
tion, the  spirit  of  the  law,  was  intended  only  to  protect  the 
English  settler,  and  to  exterminate  the  Irishman.  This  Sir 
John  Davies  himself,  Attorney-General  of  King  James  I., 
declares  lay  at  the  root  of  all  England's  legislation  for  Ire- 
land for  four  hundred  years,  and  was  the  cause  of  all  the 
misery  and  all  the  evils  of  Ireland. 

Surrey  retired  after  two  years  ;  and  then,  according  to 
Mr.  Froude,  Henry  tried  "  Home  Kule  "  in  Ireland.     Here 


TEE  TUD0R8  IN  IRELAND.  63 

again  the  learned  historian  tries  to  make  a  point  for  his  hero ; 
and  Irishmen,  he  says,  admire  the  memory  of  this  man 
"  He  tried  '  Home  Kule '  with  you.  He  found  that  you 
were  not  able  to  govern  yourselves ;  and  he  was  obliged  to 
take  the  whip  and  drive  you."  Let  us  see  what  kind  of 
"  Home  Rule  "  did  Henry  try.  One  would  imagine  that 
"  Home  Rule,"  in  Ireland,  meant  that  Irishmen  should  man- 
age their  own  affairs,  should  have  the  making  of  their  own 
laws ;  it  either  means  this,  or  it  means  nothing.  It  is  "  a 
delusion,  a  mockeiy,  and  a  snare,"  unless  it  means  that  the 
Irish  people  have  a  right  to  assemble  in  their  own  Parlia- 
ment, to  govern  themselves  by  legislating  for  themselves, 
and  by  making  their  own  laws.  Did  the  "  Home  Rule  "  of 
Henry  VIII.  mean  this  ?  Not  a  bit  of  it.  All  he  did  was  to 
make  the  Earl  of  Kildare  Lord  Lieutenant,  or  Lord  Deputy, — 
to  f)lace  an  Irishman — that  is  to  say  an  Anglo-Norman  Irish- 
man— at  the  head  of  the  State,  for  a  few  years.  And  in  this 
consisted  the  whole  scheme  of  the  "  Home  Rule  "  attributed 
by  Mr.  Froude  to  Henry  VIII.  He  did  not  call  upon  the 
Irish  nation  and  say  to  them,  ''  Return  members  to  Parlia- 
ment, and  I  will  allow  you  to  make  your  own  laws."  He 
did  not  call  upon  the  Irish  Chieftains,  the  natural  represent- 
atives of  the  nation, — the  men  in  whose  veins  flowed  the 
blood  of  Ireland's  Chieftaincy,  for  thousands  of  years ;  he 
did  not  call  upon  the  O'Briens,  the  O'Neills,  the  McCarthys, 
and  the  O'Conors,  and  say  to  them,  "  Go,  and  assemble  ; 
make  your  own  laws ;  and,  if  they  are  just  laws,  I  will  set 
my  seal  upon  them ;  and  let  you  govern  Ireland  through 
your  o\Yii  legislation."  No ;  but  he  called  on  a  clique  of 
Anglo-Norman  lords, — the  most  unruly,  the  most  \rarlike, 
the  most  restless  pack  that  ever  you  or  I  read  or  heard  of  in 
all  history, — and  he  said  to  these  men  :  "  Take  and  govern 
the  country  ;  I  vest  the  government  in  your  hands." 

No  sooner  did  Henry  leave  these  men  to  govern  Ireland, 


54  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND, 

than  tliey  began  to  make  war  upon  the  Irish.  Kildare  was 
made  Lord  Deputy  in  1522  ;  and  the  very  first  thing  those 
Anglo-Norman  lords  did  was  to  assemble  an  army  and  lay 
waste  all  the  territory  of  the  Irish  Chieftains  around  them. 
They  killed  the  people,  burned  the  villages,  and  destroyed 
everything.  Then,  after  a  time,  they  fell  out  among  them- 
selves,— these  Norman  lords.  The  great  family  of  the  But- 
lers, the  Earls  of  Ormonde,  became  jealous  of  Kildare,  who 
was  a  Fitzgerald,  and  began  to  accuse  him  to  the  King  of 
treasonable  actions.  In  1524,  the  Earl  of  Kildare  entered 
into  an  undoubtedly  treasonable  correspondence  with  Francis 
I.,  King  of  France,  and  Charles  V.,  Emperor  of  Germany. 
He  was  called  to  England  for  the  third  time  to  answer  for 
his  conduct;  and,  in  1534,  Henry  put  him  in  prison.  Then 
his  son,  Lord  Thomas  Fitzgerald, — called  "  Silken  Thomas," 
— a  brave,  hot-headed,  rash  young  Norman  noble, — revolted, 
because  his  father  was  a  prisoner  in  England,  and  it  was  told 
him  that  the  old  Earl  was  about  to  be  put  to  death.  Henry 
declared  war  against  him,  and  he  declared  war  against  the 
King  of  England.  The  consequence  of  this  Avar  was  that  the 
whole  province  of  Munster  and  a  great  part  of  Leinster  were 
ravaged ; — the  people  were  destroyed ;  towns  and  villages  were 
burned  ;  until,  at  length,  there  was  not  as  much  left  in  nearly 
one-half  of  Ireland  as  would  feed  man  or  beast.  So  that 
this  "  Home  Rule  "  of  Henry  resulted  in  the  rebellion  of 
his  Norman  lords ;  and  the  treason  of  Kildare  ended  in  the 
ruin  of  nearly  one-half  the  Irish  people. 

Perhaps  you  will  ask  me,  did  the  Irish  people  take  any 
part  in  that  war,  so  as  to  justify  the  treatment  they  re- 
ceived ?  I  answer,  they  took  no  part  in  it ;  it  was  an  Eng- 
lish business  from  beginning  to  end ;  and  the  Irish  Chief- 
tains took  little  or  no  interest  in  that  war.  We  read  that 
only  O'Carroll,  O'Moore,  of  Offaly ;  and  O'Conor— only 
three  Irish  Chieftains  sided  with  the  Geraldine's  and  drew 


THE  TUDORS  /lY  IRELAND.  55 

tlie  Bword  against  Henry  ; — three  Chieftains  of  rather  small, 
unimportant  septs,  who  by  no  means  represented  the  Irish 
people  of  Munster  or  any  other  Province.  And  yet  upon 
the  Irish  people  fell  the  avenging  and  destroying  hand  of 
Henry  the  Eighth's  army. 

Mr.  Fronde  goes  on  to  say,  "  The  Irish,  somehow  or  other, 
yet  seemed  to  like  Henry  VIII."  Well,  if  they  did,  I  don't ' 
admire  their  taste.  He  j)leased  them,  says  Mr.  Froude,  and 
they  got  fond  of  him ;  and  then  he  adds  the  reason  why ; 
and  it  was  that  Henry  never  showed  any  disposition  to  dis- 
possess the  Irish  people  of  their  lands  or  to  externiinate 
them.  Now,  I  take  him  up  on  that.  Is  it  true  or  is  it 
not?  Fortunately  for  the  Irish  Historian,  the  State  papers 
are  open  to  us  as  well  as  to  Mr.  Froude.  What  do  tke 
State  papers  of  the  reign  of  Henry  tell  us  ?  They  tell  us 
that  project  after  project  was  formed,  during  the  reigii  of 
this  monarch,  to  drive  the  whole  Irish  nation  into  Con- 
naiiglit,  or  west  of  the  Shannon.  That  Henry  YIII.  wished 
it;  that  the  Irish  Council,  that  (according  to  Mr.  Froude) 
governed  Ireland  by  "  Home  Rule,"  wished  it ;  and  that 
the  people  of  England  desired  it.  And  one  of  those  State 
papers  is  in  these  words  : — 

"  Considering  these  premises  brought  to  pass,  there  shall 
no  Irish  be  on  this  side  of  the  waters  of  Shannon,  unprose- 
cuted,  unsubdued,  and  unexiled.  Then  shall  the  English 
Pale  be  fully  the  distance  of  two  hundred  miles  in  length 
and  more." 

More  than  this,  we  have  the  evidence  of  the  State  papers 
of  the  time,  that  Henry  YIII.  meditated  and  contemp»lated 
an  utter  extirpation, — the  utter  sweeping  away  and  destruc- 
tion of  the  whole  Irish  race.  We  find  the  Lord  Deputy 
and  Council,  in  Dublin,  wTriting  to  his  Majesty;  and  here 
are  their  words.  They  tell  him  that  his  project  is  impracti- 
calle  ;  they  say  : 


56  ENGLISn  MISnULE  IJV  IRELAND. 

"  The  land  is  large :  by  estimation  as  large  as  England  : 
so  that  to  inhabit  the  whole  with  new  inhabitants  would  be 
an  enterprise  so  great,  that  there  is  no  prince  christened  that 
might  commodiously  spare  so  many  subjects  to  depart  out 
of  his  realms  ;  but  to  encompass  the  destruction  and  total 
subjection  of  the  land  would  be  a  marvellous  and  stupendous 
achievement  from  the  great  difficulties,  both  by  lack  of 
inhabitants  and  the  great  hardiness  of  these  Irish,  who  can 
endure  both  hunger,  and  cold,  and  thirst,  and  evil  lodging, 
far  more  than  the  inhabitants  of  any  other  land.  And  it 
would  be  unprecedented,  the  conquest  of  this  land.  We 
have  not  heard  nor  read  of  any  country  that  vv^as  subdued 
by  such  a  conquest,  the  whole  inhabitants  of  which  had  been 
utterly  extirpated  iind  banished." 

Great  God !  is  this  the  man  that  Mr.  Froude  tells  us  was 
the  "  friend  of  Ireland,"  that  never  showed  any  design  to 
take  their  lands  or  to  dispossess  them  of  their  possessions  ! 
This  is  the  man — the  model  "  admirer  of  order,"  the  "  hater 
of  disorder !  "  Surely,  he  was  bound  to  create  magnificent 
order ;  for,  if  a  people  are  troublesome,  and  you  want  to 
reduce  them  to  quiet,  the  best  way,  and  the  simplest  way,  is 
to  kill  them  all.  Just  like  some  of  those  people  in  England 
— nurses,  we  read  of,  a  few  years  ago, — that  were  farming 
out  children  ;  and,  when  a  child  was  a  little  fractious,  they 
gave  it  a  nice  little  dose  of  poison ;  and  they  called  that 
"quieting"  it. 

Do  you  know  the  reason  why  Henry  YIII.  pleased  the 
Irish, — for  there  was  no  doubt  about  it, — that  they  were 
more  pleased  with  him  than  with  any  other  English  mon- 
arch, uj)  to  that  time  ?  The  reason  is  a  very  simple  one. 
He  had  his  own  designs ;  but  he  concealed  them.  He  was 
meditating,  like  an  anticipated  Oliver  Cromwell,  the  ruin 
and  destruction  of  the  Irish  race.  But  he  had  good  sense  ; 
he  kept  it  to  himself;  and  it  only  came  out  in  the  State 
papers.  But  he  treated  the  Irish  with  a  certain  amount  of 
courtesy  and  politeness.     Henry,  Avifh  all  his  faults,  was  a 


THE  TUJbOES  m  IRELAND.  57 

le{«rned  man,  an  accomplished  man,  a  man  of  the  very  hest 
manners, — a  man  that,  with  a  bland  smile,  would  give  you 
a  warm  shake  of  the  hand.  It  is  true,  the  next  day  he 
might  have  your  head  cut  off;  but  still  he  had  the  manners 
of  a  gentleman.  And  it  is  a  singular  fact,  my  friends,  that 
the  tvv^o  most  gentlemanly  Kings  in  England  were  the  two 
greatest  scoundrels,  perhaps,  that  ever  lived, — Henry  YIII. 
and  George  lY.  Henry  had  dealt  with  the  Irish  people 
with  a  certain  amount  of  civility  and  courtesy.  He  did  not 
come  in  amongst  them,  like  all  his  predecessors,  saying: 
"  You  are  the  King's  enemies;  you  ought  all  to  be  put  to 
death ;  you  are  without  the  pale  of  law  ;  you  are  barbarians 
and  savages  :  and  I  will  put  you  under  my  lieel."  Henry 
came  and  said :  "  Now  let  us  see  if  w^e  cannot  arrange  our 
dilEculties;  let  us  see,  if  we  cannot  live  in  peace  and 
quiet ; "  and  the  Irish  people  were  charmed  with  the  man's 
manner.  Ah !  my  friends,  there  was  a  black  heart  under 
that  smiling  face;  but  it  was  also  true, — a  fact  that  Mr. 
Froude  acknowledges, — that  Henry  YIII.  had  a  certain 
amount  of  popularity  with  the  Irish  people ;  which  proves 
that,  if  England  only  knew  how  to  treat  us  with  a  certain 
amount  of  kindness,  they  would,  long  since,  have  won  the 
heart  of  Ireland,  instead  of  alienating  and  embittering  it  by 
the  injustice  as  much  as  by  the  cruelty  of  their  laws.  .  .  . 
....  And  this  is  what  I  meant  on  last  Tuesday  night, 
when  I  said  that  the  English  contempt  of  Irishmen  is  really 
the  evil  that  lies  deep  at  the  root  of  all  the  bad  spirit  that 
exists  between  the  two  nations ;  for  the  simple  reason  that 
the  Irish  people  are  too  intellectual,  too  strong,  too  ener- 
getic, too  pure  of  race,  and  of  blood  too  ancient  and  too 
proud,  to  be  despised. 

And  now,  my  friends,  Mr.  Fronde,  in  his  second  lecture, 
gave  us  a  proof  of  the  great  love  the  Irish  people  had  for 
Henry  YIII.     He  says  they  were  so  fond  of  that  King  that 
3* 


58  E]SrOLI8H  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

actually,  at  liis  request,  Ireland  threw  the  Pope  overboard. 
I  use  thie  gentleman's  own  words :  "  Ireland  threw  the 
Pope  overboard  !  "  No,  Mr.  Fronde,  fond  as  we  were  of 
your  glorious  hero,  Henry  VIII.,  we  were  not  so  enamored 
of  him,  we  had  not  fallen  so  deeply  in  love  with  him  as  to 
give  up  the  Pope  for  him.  "What  are  the  facts  of  the  case  ? 
Henry,  about  the  year  1530,  got  into  difficulties  witli  the 
Pope,  which  ended  in  his  denying  his  authority  and  supremacy 
as  the  head  of  the  Catholic  Church.  He  then  picked  out  an 
apostate  monk, — a  man  who  gave  up  his  faith, — a  man  with- 
out a  shadow  of  either  conscience,  character,  or  virtue, — 
and  he  had  him  consecrated  as  the  first  Protestant  Arch- 
bishop of  Dublin.  He  was  an  Englishman  named  Brown — 
George  Brown ; — and  Henry  sent  him  over  to  Dublin,  in 
the  year  1534,  with  a  commission  to  get  the  Irish  nation  to 
follow  in  the  wake  of  the  English,  and  to  "  throw  the  Pope 
overboard "  and  acknowledge  the  supremacy  of  Henry. 
Brown  arrived  in  Dublin.  He  called  the  Bishops  together 
■ — the  Bishops  of  the  Catholic  Church ;  and  he  said  to  them : 
"  You  must  change  jowy  allegiance.  You  must  give  up  the 
Pope,  and  take  Henry,  King  of  England,  in  his  stead."  The 
Archbishop  of  Armagh,  in  those  days,  was  an  Englishman 
whose  name  was  Cromer;  and  the  moment  the  old  man 
heard  these  words,  he  rose  up  from  the  Council  Board  and 
said:  "What  blasphemy  is  this  I  hear?  Ireland  will  never 
change  her  faith ;  Ireland  never  will  renounce  her  Catholicity ; 
and  she  would  have  to  renounce  it  by  renouncing  the  head 
of  the  Catholic  Church." And  all  the  Bish- 
ops of  Ireland  followed  the  Primate,  all  the  priests  of  Ire- 
land followed  the  Primate  ;  and  George  Brown  wrote  the 
most  lugubrious  letter  home  to  his  protector,  Thomas  Crom- 
well, telling  him  :  "I  can  make  nothing  of  this  people  ;  and 
I  would  return  to  England,  only  I  am  afraid  the  King  would 
have  my  head  taken  off." 


THE  TUDORS  IJSf  IRELAND.  59 

Three  years  later,  however,  Brovvii  and  the  Lord  Deputy 
summoned  a  Parliament,  and  it  was  at  this  Parlia]nent  of 
1537,  according  to  Mr.  Froude,  that  "Ireland  threw  the 
Pope  overboard."  Now,  what  are  the  facts  ?  A  Parlia- 
ment v/as  assembled  ;  and,  from  time  immemorial,  in  Ireland, 
whenever  a  Parliament  was  assembled,  there  were  three 
delegates,  called  proctors,  from  every  Catholic  diocese  in 
Ireland,  who  sat  in  the  House  of  Commons,  in  vii-tue  of  their 
office  ; — three  priests  from  every  diocese  in  Ireland.  When 
,  this  Parliament  was  called,  the  first  thing  they  did  v/as  to 
banish  the  proctors  and  deprive  them  of  their  seats  in  the 
House.  Without  the  slightest  justice,  without  the  slightest 
show  or  pretence  of  either  right,  or  law,  or  justice,  the 
proctors  were  excluded ;  and  so  the  ecclesiastical  element — 
the  Church  elemeiit — was  completely  precluded  from  that 
Parliament  of  1537.  Then,  partly  by  promises,  partly  by 
bribes,  partly  by  threats,  this  venal  Parliament  of  the 
"  Pale," — this  English  Parliament, — this  Parliament  of  the 
rotten  little  boroughs  that  surrounded  Dublin,  and  the  five 
half-counties  that  we  have  seen, — v^illingly  took  an  oath 
that  Henry  v/as  the  head  of  the  Church;  and  Mr.  Froude 
calls  this  the  apostasy  of  the  Irish  nation  !  "With  that 
strange  want  of  knowledge  (for  I  can  call  it  nothing  else,) 
of  our  religion,  he  imagines  that  Ireland  remained  Catholic, 
even  though  he  asserts  that  she  gave  up  the  Pope.  They 
took,  he  says,  the  oath — Bishops  and  all — and  thereby  ac- 
knowledged the  supremacy  of  Henry  VIII.  But,  neverthe- 
less, they  did  not  become  Protestants ;  they  still  remained 
Catholics ;  and  the  reason  why  they  did  not  take  the  same 
oath  to  Elizabeth,  was  because  Elizabeth  insisted  on  their 
taking  the  Protestant  religion  as  well  as  the  oath  of  suprem- 
acy. I  answer  him,  at  once,  and  will  set  him  riglit  upon 
this  question.  The  Catliolic  Church  teaches,  and  has  always 
taught,  that  no  man  iq  a  Catholic  who  is  not  in  communion 


6CI  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

of  obedience  with  the  Pope  of  Rome.  Henry  VIII.,  who 
was  a  learned  man,  had  too  mucli  theology,  and  too  much 
logic,  and  too  much  sense  to  become  what  is  called  a  Protes- 
tant. He  never  embraced  the  doctrines  of  Luther ;  and  h(3 
held  on  to  every  iota  of  Catholic  doctrine  to  the  last  day  of 
his  life,  save  and  except  that  he  refused  to  acknowledge  the 
Pope.  But,  in  the  day  that  Henry  VIII.  refused  to  ac- 
knowledge the  Pope,  he  ceased  to  be  a  Catholic.  And  to 
pretend  or  to  hint  that  the  Irish  people  were  so  ignorant 
as  to  imagine  that  they  could  "  thi-ow  the  Pope  overboard," 
and  still  remain  Catholic,  is  to  offer  to  the  genius  and  in- 
telligence of  Ireland  a  gratuitous  insult 

It  is  true  that  some  of  the  Bishops  apostatized  :  I 

can  call  it  nothing  else.  They  took  the  oath  of  supremacy 
to  Henry  VIII. ,  and  tlieir  names, — living  in  the  execration 
of  Irish  history, — are :  Eugene  McGinnis,  Bishop  of  Down 
and  Conor ;  Roland  Burke  (I  am  sorry  to  say),  Bishop  of 
Clonfert ;  Florence  Kirwan,  Bishop  of  Clonmacnoise ;  Ma- 
thew  Saunders,  Bishop  of  Ossory;  and  Hugh  O'Carolan, 
Bishop  of  Clogher.  Five  bishops  only  apostatized,  the  rest 
of  Ireland's  episcopacy  remained  faithful; — and  George 
Brown,  the  apostate  Archbishop,  acknowledges  in  a  letter, 
written  at  this  time,  that  of  all  the  priests  of  the  diocese  of 
Dublin  he  could  only  find  three  that  would  take  the  oath  to 
Henry  VIII.  There  was  a  priest  down  in  Cork, — he  was 
an  Irishman,  rector  of  Shandon  ;  his  name  was  Dominic 
Tyrrell.  He  was  offered  the  Bishopric  of  Cork,  if  he  took 
the  oath ;  and  he  took  it.  There  was  a  man  named  Wil- 
liam Myah ;  he  was  offered  the  Diocese  of  Kildare  if  he 
took  the  oath ;  and  he  took  it.  There  was  another,  Alex- 
ander Devereux,  Abbot  of  Dunbrody  ;  he  was  offered  the 
Diocese  of  Ferns,  in  the  county  of  Yv^exford,  in  order  to  in- 
duce him  to  swear  allegiance  to  the  English  King :  and  he 
did  it.     These  are  all  the  names  that  represent  what  Mr. 


TEE  TUDOES  IN  IRELAND.  61 

Froude  calls  the  national  apostasy  of  Ireland.  Out  of  sa 
many  hundreds,  eight  men  were  found  wanting;  and  Mr. 
Froude  turns  round,  quietly  and  calmly,  and  tells  us  that 
the  Irish  Bishops  and  people  "threw  the  Pope  overboard." 

He  makes  another  assertion,  and  I  regret  he  made  it.  I 
regi'et  it,  because  there  is  much  in  the  learned  gentleman 
that  I  admire  and  esteem.  He  asserts  that  the  Bishops  of 
Ireland,  in  these  days,  were  immoral  men ;  that  they  had 
families ;  that  they  were  not  like  the  venerable  men  v/hom 
we  see  in  the  episcopacy  of  to-day.  Now,  I  answer,  that 
there  is  not  a  shred  of  testimony  to  bear  up  Mr.  Froude  in 
this  wild  assertion.  I  have  read  the  history  of  Ireland — 
national,  civil,  ecclesiastical — as  far  as  I  could ;  and  no- 
where have  I  seen  even  an  allegation,  much  less  a  proof,  of 
immorality  against  the  Irish  clergy,  or  their  Bishops,  at  the 

time  of  the  Reformation But,  perhaps,  when 

Mr.  Froude  said  this,  he  meant  the  apostate  Bishops.  If  so, 
I  am  willing  to  grant  him  whatever  he  chooses  in  regard 
to  them,  and  whatever  charge  he  lays  upon  them,  the  heav- 
ier it  is,  the  more  pleased  I  am  to  see  it  coming  from  that 
source. 

The  next  passage  in  the  relation  of  Henry  VIII.  to  Ire- 
land, goes  to  prove  that  Ireland  did  not  "  throw  the  Pope 
overboard."  My  friends,  in  the  year  1541,  a  Parliament 
assembled  in  Dublin,  and  declared  that  Henry  VIII.  was 
"  King  of  Ireland."  They  had  been  four  hundred  years  and 
more  fighting  for  that  title  ;  and  at  length  it  was  conferred 
by  the  Irish  Parliament  upon  the  English  monarch.  Two 
years  later,  in  gratitude  to  the  Irish  Parliament,  Henry 
called  all  the  Irish  Chieftains  over  to  a  grand  assembly  at 
Greenwich  ;  and  on  the  1st  day  of  July,  1543,  he  gave  the 
Irish  Chieftains  their  English  titles.  O'Neill,  of  Ulster, 
got  the  title  of  Earl  of  Tyrone ;  the  glorious  O'Donnell, 
the  title  of  Earl  of  Tyrconnell ;    Ulic  McWilUam  Barko 


62  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

was  (jailed  the  Earl  of  Clanricarde  ;  Fitzpatrick  got  the 
name  of  Baron  of  Ossoiy;  and  they  returned  to  Ireland 
with  their  new  titles.  Henry,  free,  open-handed,  generous 
ieWow,  as  he  was — he  was  really  very  generous — ^gave  those 
Chieftains  not  only  the  titles,  but  a  vast  amount  of  proper- 
ty ;  only  it  happened  to  be  stolen  from  the  Catholic  Church. 
He  was  an  exceedingly  generous  man  with  other  people's 
goods.  In  order  to  promote  the  authorized  reformation — 
not  Protestantism,  but  his  own  reformation — in  Ireland, 
Henry  gave  to  these  Irish  Earls,  with  their  English  titles, 
all  the  abbey  lands  and  convent  and  church  lands  that  lay 
within  their  possessions.  The  consequence  was  that  he 
enriched  them ;  and  to  the  eternal  shame  of  the  O'Neill 
and  O'Donnell,  McWiliiam  Burke  and  Fitzpatrick  of  Os- 
sory,  they  had  the  cowardliness  and  weakness  to  accept 
those  gifts  at  his  hand.  They  came  home  with  the  spoil 
of  the  monasteries,  and  their  English  titles.  And  now, 
mark.  The  Irish  people  were  as  true  as  steel  in  that 
day  when  the  Irish  Chieftains  proved  false  to  their  country 
and  their  God.  Nowhere  in  the  previous  history  of  Ireland 
do  we  read  of  the  Clans  rising  against  their  Clueftains. 
Nowhere  do  we  read  of  the  O'Neill  or  O'Donnell  dispos- 
sessed by  his  own  people.  But  on  this  occasion,  when  they 
came  home,  mark  what  followed.  O'Brien,  Earl  of  Tho- 
mond,  when  he  arrived  in  Munster,  found  half  his  domin- 
ions in  revolt  against  him.  McWiliiam  Burke,  Earl  of 
Clanricarde,  when  his  people  heard  that  their  leader  had 
accepted  the  Abbey  lands,  the  first  thing  they  did  was  to 
depose  him,  and  set  up  against  him  another  man,  with  the 
title  of  The  McWiliiam  Oughter  de  Burgh.  Con  O'Neill, 
Earl  of  Tyrone,  when  he  came  home  to  Ulster,  was  taken 
by  his  own  son,  and  clapjDcd  into  jail ;  and  he  died  there, 
all  his  people  abandoning  him.  O'Donnell,  Earl  of  Tyr- 
connell,  came  home,  and  his  own  son  and  all  his  people  rose 


THE  TUDORS  IN  IRELAND.  63 

against  Mm  and  drove  him  out  from  the  midst  of  them. 
jS'ow,  I  say,  in  the  face  of  all  this — Mr.  Fronde  is  not  justi- 
fied in  stating  that  "  Irehind  threw  the  Pope  overboard." 
These  Chieftain^  did  not  renounce  the  Catholic  religion  ; 
they  only  renounced  the  Pcipal  supremacy.  They  did  not 
come  i\Dme  Protestants ;  they  only  came  home  schismatics, 
and  ver}'-  bad  Catholics  ;  and  Ireland  would  not  stand  them. 
Henry  died  in  1547;  and  I  verily  believe  that,  with  all 
the  badness  of  his  heart,  had  he  lived  a  few  years  longer, 
he  would  not  have  been  a  curse,  but  a  blessing  to  Ireland  ; 
for  the  simple  reason  that  those  who  came  after  him  were 
worse  tlian  himself.  He  was  succeeded  by  his  child-son, 
Edward  VI.,  who  was  under  the  care  or  guardianship  of  the 
Duke  of  Somerset.  Somerset  was  a  thoroughgoing  Protes- 
tant. Somerset  did  not  believe  in  the  Papal  supremacy ; 
he  did  not  believe  in  the  Blessed  Sacrament,  nor  in  anything 
that  savored  of  the  teachings  of  the  Catholic  Church.  He 
was  opposed  to  them  all.  As  soon  as  Henry  was  dead,  and 
young  Edward  had  been  proclaimed  King,  he  sent  over  to 
Ireland  orders  to  put  the  laws  in  force  against  the  Catholic 
Church.  Consequently  the  churches  were  pillaged;  the 
Catholic  priests  were  driven  out ;  and  as  Mr.  Froude  puts 
it,  "  the  emblems  of  superstition  were  pulled  down."  The 
emblems  of  superstition,  as  Mr.  Froude  calls  them,  were 
the  figure  of  Jesus  Christ  crucified,  the  statues  of  His 
Blessed  Mother,  and  the  pictures  of  His  Saints.  All  these 
things  were  pulled  do^^Ti  and  destroyed.  The  crucifix  was 
trampled  under  foot.  The  ancient  statue  of  Our  Lady  of 
Trim,  in  the  county  of  Meath,  was  publicly  burned.  The 
churches  were  rifled  and  sacked  ;  and,  as  Mr.  Froude  elo- 
quently says,  "  Ireland  was  taught  the  lesson  that  she  must 
yield  to  the  new  order  of  things  or  stand  by  the  Pope." 
*'  Irish  traditions  and  ideas,"  Mr.  Froude  says,  "  became 
inseparably   linked   with   religion."       Glory   to    you,    Mr. 


64  ENGLISH  MISPMLE  m  IRELAND, 

Froude.  He  goes  on  to  say  in  eloqnent  language:  *' Ire^ 
land  chose  her  place  on  tlae  Pope's  side,  and  chose  it  irrev- 
ocably ;  and  from  that  time  the  cause  of  the  Catholic  re- 
ligion and  Irish  independence  became  inseparably  and  irrev- 
ocably one." 

Edward  VI.  died  after  a  short  reign ;  and  then  came 
Queen  Mary,  kno^vn  in  England  by  the  title  of  "  Bloody 
Mary."  She  was  a  Catholic ;  and  without  doubt,  she  per- 
secuted her  Protestant  subjects.  But  Mr.  Froude,  speaking 
of  her  in  his  lecture,  says :  "  There  was  no  persecution  of 
Protestants  in  Ireland,  because  there  v/ere  no  Protestants 
to  be  persecuted."  And  he  goes  on  to  say :  "  Those  who 
were  in  Ireland,  when  Mary  came  to  the  throne,  fled." 
Now,  my  friends,  I  must  take  the  learned  historian  to  task 
on  this.  The  insinuation  is,  that  if  the  Protestants  had 
been  in  Ireland,  the  Irish  Catholic  people  would  have  per- 
secuted them.  The  impression  he  desires  to  leave  on  the 
mind  is  that  we.  Catholics,  would  be  only  too  glad  to  im- 
brue our  hands  in  the  blood  of  our  fellow-citizens,  on  the 
question  of  religion,  or  difference  in  doctrine.  He  does 
this  to  convey  the  impression,  as  much  as  to  say  that,  if  the 
Protestants  were  in  Ireland,  whatever  chance  they  might 
have  in  any  other  country,  they  had  no  chance  at  all  in 
Ireland. 

Now,  w^hat  are  the  facts, — the  historical  facts?  The 
facts  are  that,  during  the  reign  of  Edward  YI.^  and  during 
the  latter  years  of  his  father's  reign,  certain  apostates  from 
the  Catholic  Church  were  sent  over  to  Ireland  as  Bishops ; 
— men,  whom  even  English  history  convicts  and  condemns 
for  almost  every  crime.  As  soon  as  Mary  came  to  the 
throne,  these  gentlemen  did  not  wait  to  be  ordered  out; 
they  went  out  of  their  own  accord.  It  was  not  a  question, 
at  ail,  of  the  Irish  people  ;  it  was  not  a  question  for  Ire- 
land ;  it  was  a  question  between  the  Queen  of  England  and 


THE  TUDORS  IN  IRELAND.  65 

certain  Eiiglisli  Bishops  that  were  foisted  iipon  the  Irish 
Church.  Thej  thought  it  the  best  of  their  play  to  clear 
out  at  once  ;  and  I  verily  believe  that  they  acted  very  pru- 
dently. Bat  so  far  as  regards  the  Irish  people,  I  claim  for 
my  native  land  that  she  never  persecuted  on  account  of  re- 
ligion. I  am  proud,  in  addressing  an  American  audience, 
to  be  able  to  put  in  this  high  claim  for  Ireland.  The  genius 
of  the  Irish  people  is  not  a  persecuting  one.  There  is  not  a 
people  on  the  face  of  the  earth  so  attached  to  the  Catholic 
religion  as  the  Irish  race  :  but  there  is  not  a  people  on  the 
face  of  the  earth  so  unwilling  to  persecute  or  to  shed  blood 
in  the  cause  of  religion  as  the  Irish.  And,  here  are  my 
proofs:  Mr.  Froude  says  that  the  Protestants  fled  out  of 
Ireland  as  soon  as  Queen  Mary  came  to  the  throne;  but  Sir 
James  Ware,  in  his  "  Annals,"  tells  us  that  the  Protestants 
were  being  persecuted  in  England  under  Mary,  and  that 
they  actually  fled  over  to  Ireland  for  protection.  He  gives 
even  the  names  of  some  of  them.  He  tells  us  that  John 
Harvey,  Abel  Ellis,  Joseph  Edwards,  and  Henry  Hall,  na- 
tives of  Cheshire,  came  over  to  Ireland  to  avoid  the  perse- 
cution that  was  raging  in  England  ;  and  they  brought  with 
them  a  Welsh  Protestant  minister  named  Thomas  Jones. 
These  four  gentlemen  were  received  so  cordially,  were  wel- 
comed so  hospitably,  that  they  actually  founded  highly  re- 
spectable mercantile  families  in  Dublin. 

But  we  have  another  magnificent  proof  that  the  Irish  are 
not  a  persecuting  race.  When  James  II.  assembled  his 
Catholic  Parliament  in  Ireland,  in  1689, — after  they  had 
been  for  more  than  one  hundred  years  under  the  lash  of  their 
Protestant  fellow-citizens,  after  they  had  been  robbed  and 
plundered,  imprisoned  and  put  to  death  for  their  adherence 
to  the  Catholic  faith, — at  last  the  wheel  gave  a  turn ;  and,  ii^ 
1689,  the  Catholics  were  up  and  the  Protestants  were  do'.vn. 
That  Parliament  assembled  to  the  number  of  two  hundred  and 


66  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

twenty-eight  members.  The  Celts — the  Irish,  the  Catholic 
element — had  a  sweeping  majority.  What  v,^as  the  first  law 
that  they  made  ?  The  very  first  law  that  that  Catholic  Par- 
liament passed  was  as  follows  : — 

"AYe  hereby  decree  that  it  is  the  law  of  this  land  of  Ire- 
land that,  neither  now  nor  ever  again,  shall  any  man  be  per- 
secuted for  his  religion." 

That  was  the  retaliation  we  took  on  them.  Was  it  not 
magnificent?  Was  it  not  grand  ?  a  magnificent  specimen  of 
that  spirit  of  Christianity,  that  spirit  of  forgiveness  and 
cliarity  without  which,  if  it  be  not  in  a  man,  all  the  dog- 
matic truths  that  ever  were  revealed  will  not  save  or  enno- 
ble him. 

IsTow,  comiiig  to  "  good  Queen  Bess,"  as  she  is  called,  I 
must  say  that  Mr.  Froude  bears  very  heavily  upon  her,  and 
speaks  of  her  really  in  language  as  terrific  in  its  severity  as 
any  that  I  could  use,  and  far  more,  for  I  have  not  the  learn- 
ing nor  the  eloquence  of  Mr.  Froude.  He  says  one  little 
thing  of  her,  however,  that  is  worthy  of  remark.  He 
says : — 

"  Elizabeth  was  reluctant  to  draw  the  sword ;  but  when 
she  did  draw  it,  she  never  sheathed  it  until  the  star  of  free- 
dom was  fixed  upon  her  banner,  never  to  pale." 

Now,  that  is  a  very  eloquent  passage  ;  but  the  soul  of  elo- 
quence is  truth.  Is  it  true,  historically,  that  Elizabeth  was 
reluctant  to  draw  the  sword  ?  Answer  it,  ye  Irish  annals ! 
Answer  it,  oh  history  of  Ireland  !  Elizabeth  came  to  the 
throne  in  1558.  The  following  year,  in  1559,  there  was  a 
Parliament  assembled  by  her  order  in  Dublin.  Wliat  do 
you  think  were  the  laws  of  that  Parliament  ?  It  was  not  a 
Catholic  Parliament,  nor  an  Irish  Parliament.  It  consisted 
of  seventy-six  members.  Generally  speaking.  Parliaments 
in  Ireland  used  to  have  from  two  hundred  and  twenty  to  two 


THE  TUDOES  IIT  IRELAND.  67 

hundred  and  thirty  members.  This  Parliament  of  Elizabeth 
consisted  of  seventy-six  picked  men.  The  laws  that  that 
Parliament  made  were,  first : — "  Any  clergyman  not  nsing 
the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  (the  Protestant  prayer-book), 
or  nsing  an}''  other  form^  either  in  j^ublic  or  in  private,  the 
first  time  that  he  is  discovered,  shall  be  deprived  of  his  bene- 
fice for  one  year,  and  suffer  imprisonment  in  jail  for  six 
months.  For  the  second  ofience  he  shall  forfeit  his  income 
forever,  and  be  put  in  jail  at  the  Queen's  good  pleasure ;  " 
to  be  let  out  whenever  she  thought  proper.  For  the  third 
offence  he  was  to  be  put  in  close  confinement  for  life.  This 
was  the  lady  that  was  "  reluctant  to  draw  the  sword ! "  and, 
my  friends,  remember  that  this  w^as  the  very  year  after  she 
was  crowned  Queen — the  very  next  year.  She  scarcely 
v/aited  a  year.  This  was  the  woman  "reluctant  to  draw  the 
sword  !  "  So  much  for  the  priests ;  now  for  the  laymen.  If 
a  layman  were  discovered  using  any  other  prayer-book  except 
Queen  Elizabeth's  prayer-book,  he  was  to  be  put  in  jail  for 
one  year ;  and  if  he  were  caught  doing  it  a  second  time,  he  was 
to  be  put  in  prison  for  the  rest  of  his  life.  Every  Sunday 
the  people  were  obliged  to  go  to  the  Protestant  Church ;  and 
if  any  one  refused  to  go,  for  every  time  that  he  refused  he 
was  fined  twelve  pence — that  would  be  about  twelve  shillings 
of  our  present  money ;  and  besides  the  fine  of  twelve  pence, 
he  was  to  "  incur  the  censures  of  the  church  !  "  "  The  star 
of  freedom,"  says  Mr.  Froude,  '*'  was  never  to  pale."  "  The 
Queen  drew  the  sword  in  the  cause  of  the  star  of  freedom  !  " 
But,  my  friends,  freedom  meant  whatever  fitted  in  Eliza- 
beth's mind.  Freedom  meant  slavery  tenfold  increased,  with 
the  addition  of  religious  persecution,  to  the  unfortunate 
Irish.  If  this  be  Mr.  Fronde's  idea  of  the  star  of  freedom, 
all  I  can  say  is,  the  sooner  such  stars  fall  from  heaven  and 
the  firmament  of  the  world's  history,  the  better. 

In.  what  state  was  the  Irish  Church?     Upon  that  subject 


68  ENGLISH  MISRULE  Iif  IRELAND. 

we  have  the  authority  of  the  Protestant  historian,  Lelancl. 
There  were  two  hundred  and  twenty  parish  churches  in 
Meath,  and  in  a  few  years  time  there  Avere  only  one  hundred 
and  five  of  them  left  with  the  roofs  on. 

"  All  over  the  kingdom"  (says  Leland)  "  the  people  were 
left  without  any  religious  worship,  and  under  tlie  pretence 
of  olicying  the  orders  of  the  State,  they  seized  all  the  most 
valuable  furniture  of  the  churches,  which  was  actually  ex- 
posed for  sale  without  decency  or  reserve." 

A  number  of  hungry  adventurers  were  let  loose  upon  the 
Irish  churches  and  uj^on  the  Irish  peo[)le  by  Elizabeth. 
They  not  only  robbed  them  and  plundered  their  churches, 
but  they  shed  the  blood  of  the  Bishops  and  priests  and  of 
the  people  in  torrents,  as  Mr.  Froude  himself  acknowledges. 
He  tells  us  that,  after  the  second  rebellion  of  the  Geraldines, 
such  was  the  state  to  which  the  fair  Province  of  JMunster  was 
reduced,  that  you  might  go  through  the  land,  from  the  farther- 
most point  of  Kerry  until  you  came  into  the  eastern  plains 
of  Tipperar}',  and  you  would  not  as  much  as  hear  the  whis- 
tle of  a  ploughboy,  or  behold  the  face  of  a  living  man.  But 
the  trenches  and  ditches  were  filled  with  the  corpses  of  the 
people,  and  the  country  was  reduced  to  a  howling,  desolate 
wilderness.  The  poet  Spenser  describes  it  emphatically,  in 
language  the  most  terrific.  Even  he,  case-hardened  as  he 
vv^as, — for  he  was  one  of  the  plunderers  and  persecutors  him- 
self— acknowledges  that  the  state  of  Munster  was  such  that 
no  man  could  look  upon  it  with  a  dry  eye.  Sir  Henry  Sid- 
ney, one  of  Elizabeth's  own  deputies,  addressing  her,  says 
of  the  overthrown  churches : — 

''  There  are  not,  I  am  sure,  in  any  region  where  the  name 
of  Christ  is  professed,  such  horrible  spectacles,  as  are  here 
to  be  beheld ;  as  the  burning  of  villages,  the  ruin  of 
churches, — yea,  the  view^  of  the  bones  and  skulls  of  the 
dead,  who,  partly  by  murder  and  partly  by  famine,  have  died 


THE  TUDOBS  IlSf  IRELAND.  69 

in  tlie  fields.     It  is  such  that  hardly  any  Christian  can  with 
a  dry  eye  behold." 

Her  own  Minister, — her  own  General! — there  is  his 
testimony  of  the  state  to  which  this  terrible  woman  reduced 
unhappy  Ireland.  Strafford,  another  English  authority, 
says  : — "  I  knew  it  was  bad  in  Ireland  ;  but  that  it  was  so 
stark-wrought  I  did  not  believe." 

In  the  midst  of  all  this  persecution,  what  was  still  the 
reigning  idea  in  the  mind  of  the  English  Government  ?  To 
root  out  and  to  extirj^ate  the  Irish  from  their  own  land, 
added  to  which  was  now  the  element  of  religious  discord  and 
persecution.  It  is  evident  that  this  was  still  in  the  minds 
of  the  English  people.  Elizabeth,  who,  Mr.  Froude  says, 
"  never  dispossessed  an  Irishman  of  an  acre  of  his  land,"  dur- 
ing the  terrible  war  which  she  waged  in  the  latter  days  of  her 
reign  against  the  heroic  Hugh  O'Neill,  of  Ulster,  threw  out 
such  hints  as  these  :  "  The  more  slaughter  there  is,  the  bet- 
ter it  will  be  for  my  English  subjects ;  the  more  land  they 
will  get."  This  is  the  woman,  who,  Mr.  Froude  tells  us, 
never  confiscated,  and  would  never  listen  to  the  idea  of 
confiscation  of  property !  This  woman,  when  the  Geraldines 
were  destroyed,  took  the  whole  of  the  vast  estates  of  the 
Earl  of  Desmond,  and  gave  them  all,  quietly  and  calmly,  to 
certain  English  planters,  that  she  sent  over  from  Lancashire, 
Cheshire,  Devonshire,  and  Somersetshire.  And  in  the  face 
of  these  historic  truths,  recoided  and  stamped  on  history,  I 
cannot  understand  how  any  man  can  come  forward  and  say 
of  this  atrocious  woman  that  whatever  she  did  she  intended 
it  for  the  good  of  Ireland. 

In  1602,  she  died,  after  reigning  forty-one  years,  leaving 
Ireland  at  the  hour  of  her  death  one  vast  slaughter-house. 
Munster  was  reduced  to  the  state  described  by  Spenser. 
Connaught  was  made  a  wilderness  through  the  rebellion  of 
the  Clanricardes,  or  the  Burke  family.     Ulster,  through  the 


70  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

agdiicy  of  Lord  Mountjoy,  was  left  the  very  picture  of  deso- 
lation. The  glorious  Ked  Hugh  O'Donnell  and  the  magnifi- 
cent O'Neill  were  crushed  and  defeated  after  fifteen  years  of 
war.  And  the  consequence  was  that,  when  James  the  First 
succeeded  Elizabeth,  he  found  Ireland  almost  a  wilderness. 
What  did  he  do  ?  He  acted  well  at  first.  He  promised 
the  Irish  that  they  should  be  left  their  lands.  He  succeeded 
to  the  throne  of  England  in  1G03  ;  and  for  four  years — I 
must  give  him  the  credit — for  four  years  he  kept  his  word. 
But,  in  1607,  Hugh  O'Neill,  and  O'Donnell,  of  Tyrconnell, 
fled  from  their  country  to  escape  imprisonment ;  and  then, 
Sir  Arthur  Chichester,  an  Englishman,  the  agent  of  the 
King,  developed  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  systems  that 
ever  was  heard  of  in  the  relation  of  one  country  to  another. 
They  took  the  whole  of  the  province  of  Ulster,  and  scarcely 
left  to  the  Irish  a  foot  of  land  of  their  finest  province. 
They  transferred  it  from  the  original  population  ;  and  handed 
it  over  to  settlers  from  Eagland  and  from  Scotland.  It  was 
called  "The  Plantation  of  Ulster."  They  gave  to  the 
Protestant  Archbishop  of  Armagh  43,000  acres  of  the  finest 
land  in  Ireland.  They  gave  to  Trinity  College,  in  Dublin, 
30,000  acres.  They  gave  to  the  "  Skinners "  and  "  Cord- 
wainers  "  and  "  Drysalters,"  all  those  corporations  of  trade 
in  London,  208,000  acres  of  the  finest  land  in  Ireland. 
They  brought  over  a  colony  of  Scotch  Presbyterians,  and  of 
English  Protestants,  and  gave  them  tracts  of  a  thousand  and 
fifteen  hundred  and  two  thousand  acres  of  land,  making 
them  swear,  as  they  did  so,  that  they  would  not  employ  one 
single  Irishman,  or  single  Catholic,  nor  let  them  come  near 
them.  Thus  millions  of  acres  of  the  finest  land  in  Ireland 
were  taken  at  one  blow  from  the  Irish  ;  and  the  people  were 
crushed  out  of  their  property. 

Mr.  Froude,  in  his  rapid  historical  sketch,  said  that  all 
this,  of  course,  bred  revenge;  and  he  tells  us  that,  in  1641, 


THE  TUDOES  Ili  IRELAND.  71 

the  Irish  rose  in  rebellion.  So  they  did.  Now,  he  makes 
one  statement,  and  with  the  refutation  of  that  statement  I 
will  close  this  lecture.  Mr.  Froude  tells  us  that,  in  the 
rising  under  Sir  Phelim  O'Neil,  in  1642,  there  were  38,000 
Protestants  massacred  by  the  Irish.  That  is  a  grave  charge, 
a  most  terrific  one,  in  the  case  of  a  people  :  and  if  it  be 
true,  all  I  can  say  is  that  I  blush  for  my  fathers.  But  if  it 
be  not  true,  why,  in  the  name  of  God,  repeat  it  ?  Why  not 
wipe  it  out  from  the  records  for  a  lie  as  it  is.  Is  it  true  ? 
The  Irish  rose  under  Sir  Phelim  O'Neill.  At  that  time 
there  was  a  Protestant  parson  in  Ireland  who  called  himself 
a  Minister  of  the  AYord  of  God.  He  gives  an  account  of 
the  whole  transaction  in  a  letter  to  the  people  of  England, 
begging  of  them  to  help  their  fellow-Protestants  of  Ireland. 
Here  are  his  words  :  "It  was  the  intention  of  the  Irish  to 
massacre  all  the  English.  On  Saturday  they  were  to  disarm 
them,  on  Sunday  to  seize  all  their  cattle  and  goods,  and  on 
Monday  they  were  to  cut  all  the  English  throats.  The 
former  they  executed ;  the  latter — that  is  the  massacre — 
they  failed  in."  Petty,  another  English  authority,  tells  us, 
that  there  were  38,000  Protestants  massacred  at  that  time. 
A  man  of  the  name  of  May  foots  it  up  at  200,000.  I  sup- 
pose he  thought  "  in  for  a  penny  in  for  a  pound."  But 
there  was  an  honest  Protestant  clergyman  in  Ireland  vvdio 
examined  minutely  into  the  details  of  the  whole  conspiracy, 
and  of  all  the  evils  that  came  from  it.  What  does  he  tell 
us? 

"I  have  discovered"  (he  says — and  he  gives  proof, 
State  papers  and  authentic  records) — '*  that  the  Irish  Cath- 
olics in  that  rising  massacred  2,100  Protestants;  that  other 
Protestants  said  there  were  1,600  more ;  and  that  some 
Irish  authorities  themselves  say  there  were  3,000,  making 
altogether  4,026  persons." 

This  is  the  massacre  that  Mr.  Froude  speaks  of;  he  tosses 


72  ENGLISH  MISnULE  IJV  IRELAND. 

it  off,  as  if  it  were  Gospel, — 38,000  Protestants  were  mas- 
sacred— that  is  to  say,  lie  multiplies  the  original  number  by- 
ten  ;  whereas  IMr.  Warner,  the  authority  in  question,  says 
actually  that  there  were  2,100 ;  and  I  am  unwilling  to  be- 
lieve in  the  additional  numbers  that  have  been  stated.  And 
this  is  the  way  that  history  is  written !  This  is  the  way 
that  people  are  left  under  a  false  impression  ! 

And  now,  first  of  all,  that  we  have  seen  the  terrible  nat- 
ure of  the  evils  which  fell  upon  Ireland  in  the  days 
of  Henry  VIII.,  Eliz^ibeth,  and  James  I.,  I  ask  you,  people 
of  America,  to  set  these  two  thoughts  before  your  minds, 
contrast  them,  and  give  me  a  fair  verdict.  Is  there  any- 
thing recorded  in  history  more  terrible  than  the  persistent, 
undying  resolution, — so  clearly  manifested, — of  the  English 
Government  to  root  out,  extirpate  and  destroy,  the  people 
of  Ireland?  Is  there  anything  recorded  in  history  more 
unjust  than  this  systematic,  constitutional  robbery  of  the 
people  whom  Almighty  God  created  in  that  island,  to 
whom  he  gave  that  island,  and  who  have  the  aboriginal 
right  to  every  inch  of  Irish  soil  ?  On  the  other  hand,  can 
history  bring  forth  a  more  magnificent  spectacle  than  the 
calm,  firm,  united  resolution  with  which  Ireland  stood  in 
defence  of  her  religion,  giving  up  all  things  rather  tlian  sac- 
rifice what  she  conceived  to  be  the  cause  of  truth  ?  Mr. 
Froude  does  not  believe  it  is  the  cause  of  truth.  I  do 
not  blame  him.  Every  man  has  a  right  to  his  religious 
opinions.  But  Ireland  believed  it  was  the  cause  of  truth ; 
and  Ireland  stood  for  it  like  one  man.  I  speak  of  all  these 
things  only  historically.  I  do  not  believe  in  animosity.  I  am 
not  a  believer  in  bad  blood.  I  do  not  believe,  with  Mr. 
Froude,  that  the  question  of  Ireland's  difiiculty  nuist  re- 
main without  solution.  I  do  not  give  it  up  in  despair.  But 
this  I  do  say,  that  he  has  no  right,  nor  has  any  other  man 
the   right,  to   come  before  the   audience  of  America, — of 


TEE  TUDORS  IN  IRELAND.  73 

America,  that  has  never  persecuted  in  the  cause  of  re- 
ligion,— of  America,  that  respects  the  rights  even  of  the 
meanest  citizen  upon  her  imperial  soil, — and  to  ask  that 
American  people  to  sanction  by  their  verdict  the  robberies 
and  persecutions  of  which  England  is  guilty. 
4 


THIED  LECTUKE. 

(Lelivered  in  the  Academy  of  Music^  New  Tork^  Mov.  19,  1872.) 

THE    CPtOMWELLIAN   ERA. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen  :  We  now  approach,  in  answering 
Mr.  Froude,  to  some  of  the  most  awful  periods  of  onr  his- 
tory. I  confess  that  I  approach  this  terrific  ground  with 
sadness,  and  I  extremely  regret  that  Mr.  Froude  should 
have  opened  up  questions  which  oblige  an  Irishman  to 
undergo  the  pain  of  heart  and  anguish  of  spirit,  which  a  re- 
vision of  this  portion  of  our  history  must  occasion. 

The  learned  gentleman  began  his  third  lecture  by  remind- 
ing his  audience  that  he  had  closed  the  second  lecture  with 
a  reference  to  the  rise,  progi-ess,  and  collapse  of  a  great 
rebellion,  which  took  place  in  Ireland  in  the  year  1641 — 
that  is  to  say,  somewhat  more  than  two  hundred  years  ago. 
He  made  but  a  passing  allusion  to  that  great  event  in  our 
history  ;  and  in  that  allusion — if  he  has  been  reported  cor- 
rectly— he  stated  simply  that  the  Irish  rebelled  in  1641 : 
that  was  his  first  statement — that  it  was  a  rebellion; 
secondly,  that  this  rebellion  began  in  massacre  and  ended 
in  ruin ;  thirdly,  that,  for  nine  years,  the  Irish  leaders  had 
the  destinies  of  their  country  in  their  hands ;  and  fourthly, 
that  these  nine  years  were  years  of  anarchy  and  mutual 
slaughter.  Nothing,  therefore,  can  be  imagined  more  melan- 
choly than  the  picture  drawn  by  this  learned  gentleman  of 
those  nine  sad  years,  and  yet  I  will  venture  to  say,  and 
hope  I  shall  be  able  to  prove,  that  each  of  those  four  state- 
ments is  without  sufficient  historical  foundation. 


TEE  CROMWELLIAN  EBA. 


75 


My  first  position  is  that  the  movement  of  1641  was  not  a 
rebellion ;  second,  that  it  did  not  begin  with  massacre, 
although  it  ended  in  ruin ;  third,  that  the  Irish  leaders  had 
not  the  destinies  of  their  country  in  their  hands  during  those 
nine  years;  and  fourth,  that  whether  they  had  or  not, 
those  years  were  not  a  period  of  anarchy  and  mutual 
slaughter.  They  were  but  the  opening  to  a  far  more  terrific 
period.  We  must  discuss  these  questions,  my  friends, 
calmly  and  historically.  "We  must  look  upon  them  rather 
like  antiquarians  prying  into  the  past,  than  with  the  living, 
warm  feelings  of  men,  whose  blood  boils  up  at  the  remem- 
brance of  so  much  injustice  and  so  much  bloodshed. 

In  order  to  uuderstand  these  questions  fully  and  fairly,  it 
is  necessary  for  us  to  go  back  to  the  historit^al  events  of  the 
time.  We  find,  then,  that  James  I.,  the  man  who  '*  plant- 
ed "  Ulster, — that  is  to  say,  who  confiscated,  utterly  and 
entirely,  six  of  the  fairest  counties  in  Ireland, — an  entire 
Province, — rooting  out  the  aboriginal  Irish  Catholic  inhabi- 
tants, even  to  a  man,  and  giving  the  whole  country  to 
Scotch  and  English  settlers  of  the  Protestant  religion,  under 
the  condition  that  they  were  not  to  employ  even  as  much  as 
an  Irish  laborer  on  their  grounds — that  they  Avere  to  banish 
them  all; — we  find  that  this  man  died  in  1625,  and  was 
succeeded  by  his  unfortunate  son,  Charles  I.  When  Charles 
came  to  the  throne,  bred  up  as  he  was  in  the  traditions  of  a 
monarchy  which  Henry  YIII.  had  rendered  almost  absolute, 
as  we  know; — whose  absolute  power  was  still  continued 
under  Elizabeth,  under  a  form  the  most  tyrannical ; — v/hose 
absolute  power  was  continued  by  his  own  father,  James  I. ; 
■ — Charles  came  to  the  throne  with  the  most  exasjo-erated 
ideas  of  royal  privilege  and  royal  supremacy.  But,  d\iring 
the  days  of  his  father,  a  new  spirit  had  grown  up  iu  Scotland 
and  in  England.  The  form  which  Protestantism  took  in 
Scotland  was  the  hard  and  uncompromising,  and,  I  will  add, 


76  ENGLISH  MISRULE  I2i  IRELA2W. 

cruel,  form  of  Calyinism,  in  its  most  repellent  aspect.  The 
men  ^vho  rose  in  Scotland  in  defence  of  their  Presbyterian 
religion,  rose  not  against  Catholicity  at  all,  but  against  the 
Episcopal  Protestantism  of  England.  They  defended  what 
they  called  the  "Kirk,"  or  the  "  Covenant."  They  fought 
bravely,  I  acknowledge,  for  it ;  and  they  ended  in  establish- 
ing it  as  the  religion  of  Scotland.  Now,  Charles  I.  was  an 
Episcopalian  Protestant  of  the  most  sincere  and  devoted 
kind.  The  Parliament  of  England,  in  the  very  first  years 
of  Charles,  admitted  members  who  were  strongly  tinged  with 
Scotch  Calvinism;  and  they  at  once  showed  a  refractory 
spirit  to  their  King.  He  demanded  of  them  certain  subsi- 
dies, and  they  refused  him.  He  asserted  certain  sovereign 
rights,  and  they  denied  them.  But  whilst  all  this  w^as  go- 
ing on  in  England,  from  the  year  1G30,  to,  let  us  say,  the 
year  1641,  what  was  taking  pkice  in  Ireland  ?  One  Prov- 
ince of  the  land  had  been  completely  confiscated  by  James  I. 
Charles  I.  was  in  want  of  money,  for  his  own  purposes ;  his 
Parliament  refused  to  grant  him  any ;  and  the  poor,  op- 
pressed, down-trodden,  persecuted  Catholics  of  Ireland  im- 
agined, naturally  enough,  that  the  King,  beiug  in  difiiculties, 
would  turn  to  them,  and,  perhaps,  lend  them  a  little  counte- 
nance and  a  little  favor,  if  they  proclaimed  their  loyalty  and 
stood  by  him.  Accordingly,  the  Lord  Lieutenant  of  Ireland, 
Lord  Falkland — sincerely  attached,  as  he  was,  to  his  royal 
master — hinted  to  the  Catholics,  and  proposed  to  them,  that, 
as  they  were  under  the  most  terrific  penal  laws,  from  the 
days  of  Elizabeth  and  James  I., — that,  perhaps,  if  they 
should  now  petition  the  Iving,  they  would  get  certain 
"graces"  or  concessions  granted  to  them.  AVhat  these 
"  graces  "  were,  simply  involved  permission  to  live  in  their 
own  land,  and  permission  to  worship  their  God  according  to 
the  dictates  of  their  own  conscience.  They  asked  for  noth- 
ing more,  and  nothing  more  was  promised  to  them.     When 


THE  CROMWELLIAN  ERA,  ^7 

their  petition  went  before  the  King,  his  Royal  Majesty  of 
England  issued  a  proclamation,  in  which  he  declared  that  it 
was  his  intention,  and  that  he  had  plighted  his  word,  to 
grant  to  the  Catholics,  and  to  the  people  of  Ireland,  certain 
concessions  and  indulgences  which  he  named  by  the  name  of 
"  graces."  No  sooner  did  the  newly-founded  Puritan  ele- 
ment, in  England  and  in  the  Parliament, — that  were  fight- 
ing against  their  King, — no  sooner  did  they  hear  that  the 
slightest  relaxation  of  the  penal  laws  was  to  be  granted  to 
the  Catholics  of  Ireland,  than  they  instantly  rose  and  pro- 
tested that  it  should  not  be.  And  Charles — to  his  eternal 
disgrace — ^^broke  his  word  with  the  Catholics  of  Ireland,  a.f- 
ter  they  had  sent  him  £120,000  in  acknowledgment  of  his 
promise.  -  More  than  this,  it  was  suspected  that  Lord  Falk- 
land was  too  mild  a  man,  too  just  a  man,  to  be  a,llowed  to 
remain  as  Lord  Lieutenant  of  Ireland.  He  was  recalled ; 
and,  after  a  short  lapse.  Went  worth,  who  was  afterwards 
Earl  Strafford,  was  sent  to  Ireland  as  Lord  Lieutenant. 

Yv^entworth,  on  his  arrival,  summoned  a  Parliament,  which 
met  in  the  year  1634.  He  told  them  the  difficulties  the 
King  Avas  in ;  he  told  them  how  the  Parliament  in  England 
was  rebelling  against  him ;  and  how  he  looked  to  his  Irish 
subjects  as  loyal.  He,  perhaps,  told  them  that,  amongst 
Catholics,  loyalty  was  not  a  mere  sentiment,  but  an  unshaken 
principle,  resting  upon  conscience  and,  religion.  And  then 
he  assured  them  that  Charles,  the  King  of  England,  still  in- 
tended to  keep  his  word  and  grant  them  the  concessions  ©r 
"graces." 

ISText  came  the  usual  demand  for  money ;  and  the  Irish 
Parliament  granted  six  subsidies  of  £50,000  each.  Strafforii 
wrote  to  the  King,  congratulating  him  on  getting  so  much 
money  out  of  Ireland;  "For,"  said  he,  "your  Majesty  re- 
members, that  you  and  I  expected  only  £30,000,  and  they 
have  granted  subsidies  of  £50,000."     More  than  this,  they 


78  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

granted  him  8,000  mfantry  and  1,000  horse,  to  fight  againsi 
his  Scottish  rebellious  subjects  and  enemies. 

The  Parliament  met  the  following  year,  in  1635;  and 
what  do  you  think  was  the  fulfilment  of  the  Koyal  promise 
to  the  Catholics  of  Ireland  ?  Strafibrd  had  got  the  money. 
He  did  not  wish  to  comf)romise  his  master,  the  King ;  and 
he  took  upon  himself,  and  fixed  upon  his  own  memory  the 
indelible  shame  and  disgrace  of  breaking  his  word,  which 
he  had  plighted,  and  disappointing  the  Catholics  of  Ireland. 
Then,  in  1635,  the  real  character  of  this  man  came  out;  and 
what  do  you  think  was  the  measure  he  proposed  ?  He  in- 
stituted a  Commission  for  the  express  purpose  of  confiscat- 
ing,— in  addition  to  Ulster,  that  was  already  gone, — the 
whole  Province  of  Connaught,  so  as  not  to  leave  an  Irish- 
man or  a  Catholic  one  square  inch  of  ground  in  that' land. 
This  he  called  the  "  Commission  of  Defective  Titles."  The 
commissioners  were  men  that  were  to  inquire  into  the  title 
that  every  man  had  to  his  property,  and  to  inquire  into  it 
with  the  express  and  avowed  purpose  of  finding  a  flaw  in  it, 
if  they  could,  and  confiscating  the  land  to  the  Crown  of  Eng- 
land. Now,  remember  how  much  was  gone  already,  my 
friends.  The  whole  of  Ulster  was  confiscated  by  James  I. 
The  same  King  had  taken  the  county  of  Longford  from  the 
O'Farrells,  vv^ho  owned  it  from  time  immemorial.  He  had 
seized  upon  Wicklow,  and  taken  it  from  the  O'Tooles  and 
O'Byrnes.  He  had  taken  the  northern  part  of  the  county 
of  Wexford  from  the  O'Kavanaghs.  He  had  taken  Iracken, 
in  the  Queen's  County,  from  the  McGeoghegans.  He  had 
taken  Kilcoursey,  in  the  King's  County,  from  the  O'Molloys. 
And  novv^j  with  the  whole  of  Ulster,  and  the  better  part  of 
Leinster  in  his  hands,  this  Minister  had  instituted  a  Com- 
mission by  which  he  was  to  obtain  the  whole  of  the  Province 
of  Connaught,  root  out  the  native  Irish  population,  expel 
every  man  that  owned  a  rood  of  land  in  the  Province,  and 


THE  GBOMWELLIAN  ERA.  Y9 

reduce  them  to  beggary,  starvation,  and  deatli.  Hero  is  the 
description  of  his  plan  as  given  by  Leland,  a  historian  who 
was  hostile  to  Ireland's  faith  and  Ireland's  nationality.  Lel- 
and thns  describes  the  business  : — 

"  This  project  was  nothing  less  than  to  subvert  the  title 
of  every  estate  in  every  part  of  Connaught, — a  project  which, 
when  first  proposed  in  the  late  reign,  was  received  v/ith  hor- 
ror and  amazement,  but  v/hich  suited  the  undismayed  and 
enterprising  genius  of  Lord  Wentworth." 

Strafford's  Commission,  accordingly,  began  in  the  County 
of  Roscommon,  passed  thence  into  Sligo,  thence  to  IVIayo, 
and  thence  to  Gal  way.  Now,  mark  how  he  managed  this 
tribunal.  The  only  way  by  which  a  title  could  be  upset, 
Avas  by  having  a  jury  of  twelve  men,  to  declare  by  their 
verdict  whether  the  title  was  valid  or  not.  Strafford  began 
by  packing  the  juries, — packing  them !  It  is  the  old  story 
over  again, — the  old  policy  that  has  been  continued  down 
to  our  time, — the  policy  of  a  packed  and  prejudiced  jury. 
He  told  the  jury,  before  the  trial  began,  that  he  expected 
them  to  find  a  verdict  for  the  king ;  and  between  bribing 
them  and  threatening  them,  he  got  juries  to  find  for  him, 
until  he  came  into  the  county  of  Galway.  And  to  the 
honor  of  old  Galway  be  it  said,  that  as  soon  as  the  Comm.is- 
sion  arrived  in  that  county,  they  could  hot  find  twelve  jurors 
in  the  county  of  Galway  base  enough  and  wicked  enough  to 
confiscate  the  lands  of  their  fellow-subjects.  What  was  the 
result  ?  The  result  was  that  the  county  Galway  jurors 
w^ere  called  to  Dublin  before  the  Castle  Council  Chamber, 
and  every  man  of  them  w^as  fined  £4,000,  and  v/as  put  into 
prison  until  the  fine  was  paid.  Every  inch  of  their  i)rop- 
erty  was  taken  from  them  ;  and  the  High  Sherift"  of  the 
county  Galway,  not  being  a  wealthy  man,  died  in  jail  be- 
cause he  was  not  able  to  pay  his  fine.  More  than  this. 
Not  content  with  threatening  the  juries,  and  coercing  them, 


80  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

my  Lord  Strafford  went  to  tlie  Judges,  and  told  tliem  that 
they  were  to  get  four  shillings  in  the  pound  for  the  value  of 
every  piece  of  property  they  confiscated  to  the  Crown  of 
England,  Then,  he  boasted,  publicly,  that  he  had  made 
the  Chief  Baron  and  the  Judges  attend  to  this  business  as 
if  it  were  their  own  private  concern.  This  is  the  kind  of 
rule  the  English  historian  comes  to  America  to  ask  the  hon- 
est and  upright  citizens  of  this  free  country  to  indorse  by 
their  verdict,  and  thereby  to  make  themselves  accomplices 
of  English  fraud  and  robbery. 

In  this  same  year,  Strafibrd  instituted  another  tribunal  in 
Ireland,  which  he  called  the  "Court  of  Wards;"  and  do 
you  know  what  this  was  ?  It  was  found  that  the  Irish  peo- 
ple, gentle  and  simple,  as  they  were,  were  very  unwilling  to 
become  Protestants.  I  have  not  a  harsh  word  to  say  of 
Protestants.  But  this  I  will  say,  that  every  high-minded 
Protestant  in  the  world  must  admire  the  strength  and  fidel- 
ity with  which  Ireland,  because  of  her  conscience,  clung  to 
her  ancient  faith.  This  tribunal  was  instituted  in  order  to 
get  the  heirs  of  the  Catholic  gentry,  and  to  bring  them  up 
in  the  Protestant  religion.  And  it  is  to  this  "  Court  of 
Wards"  that  we  owe  the  significant  fact  that  some  of  the 
most  ancient  and  the  best  names  in  Ireland, — the  names  of 
men  Avhose  ancestors  fought  for  faith  and  fatherland, — are 
now  Protestants,  and  the  enemies  of  their  Catholic  fellow- 
subjects.  It  was  by  this,  and  such  means  as  this,  that  the 
men  of  my  own  name  became  Protestants.  There  was  no 
drop  of  Protestant  blood  in  the  veins  of  the  Dun  Earl,  or 
Bed  Earl  of  Clanricarde.  There  was  no  drop  of  any  other 
than  Catholic  blood  in  the  veins  of  the  heroic  Burkes  who 
fought  during  the  long  five  hundred  years  that  went  before 

this  time There  was  no  Protestant  blood  in 

the  O'Briens  of  Munster,  or  in  the  glorious  O'Donnells 
and  O'Neills  of  Ulster,  that  are  Protestants  to-day.      Let 


TEE  CROMWELLIAN  ERA.  81 

no  Protestant  American  citizen  here  imagine  tliat  I  am 
speaking  in  disdain  of  him  or  his  religion.  jS^o  ;  but  as  a 
historian,  I  am  pointing  out  the  means, — which  every  high- 
minded  man  must  pronounce  to  he  nefarious, — by  which 
the  aristocracy  of  Ireland  v;ere  obliged  to  change  their  re- 
ligion. 

The  Irish,  meantime,  w^aited,  and  waited  in  vain,  for  the 
fulfilment  of  the  King's  promise,  and  the  concession  of  the 
"graces,"  as  they  were  called.  At  length,  matters  grew 
desperate  between  Charles  and  his  Parliament ;  and,  in  the 
year  1640,  he  again  renewed  his  promise  to  the  Irish 
people  ;  and  he  called  a  Parliament  which  gave  him  four 
subsidies,  8,000  men,  and  1,000  horse,  to  fight  against  the 
Scotch,  who  had  rebelled  against  him.  Strafibrd  went  home 
rejoicing  that  he  had  got  those  subsidies  and  this  body  of 
men ;  but  no  sooner  did  he  arrive  in  England,  than  the  Par- 
liament, now  in  rebellion,  laid  hold  of  him.  In  that  same 
year,  1640,  Straflford's  head  was  cut  off;  and  he  would  be  a 
strange  Irishman  that  would  regret  it. 

Meantime,  the  people  of  Scotland  rose  in  armed  rebel- 
lion against  their  King.  They  marched  into  England,  and 
v/hat  do  you  think  they  made  by  their  movement  ?  They 
got  a  full  acknowledgment  of  their  religion,  which  was  not 
the  Protestant,  but  Presbyterian  ;  they  got  £300,000 ;  and 
they  got,  for  several  months,  £850  a  day  to  support  their 
army.  Then  they  retired  into  their  own  country,  having 
achieved  the  purposes  for  which  they  had  rebelled ;  and,  in 
the  meantime,  the  Catholics  of  Ireland  were  ground  into 
the  very  dust.  What  wonder,  I  ask  you,  tha.t,  seeing  the 
King  so  afraid  of  his  English  people,  though  personally  in- 
clined to  grant  these  "  graces  " — as  he  had  declared  that  he 
wished  to  grant  them ;  he  had  declared  that  it  was  his  in- 
tention to  grant  them  ;  he  had  plighted  his  royal  word  to 
grant  them, — what  wonder  that  the  Irish  thought  they  had 
4* 


82  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

every  evidence  that,  if  the  King  were  free,  he  would  grant 
them  ?  But  he  was  not  free,  because  his  Parliament  and 
the  Puritan  faction  in  England  were  in  rebellion  against 
him.  So  the  Irish  said  ;  "  Our  King  is  ]iot  free ;  if  he 
were,  he  would  be  kind  to  us  ;  let  us  rise,  then,  in  the 
name  of  the  King  and  assert  our  own  rights."  They  rose 
in  1641;  the}^  rose  like  one  man;  every  Irishman — and 
every  Catholic  in  Ireland,  rose  on  the  23d  of  October,  1641, 
with  the  exception  of  the  Catholic  Lords  of  the  "  Pale." 
And,  now,  I  give  you  the  reasons  of  this  rising,  as  recorded 
ill  the  "  Memoirs  "  of  Lord  Castlehaven,  who  Avas  by  -no 
means  prejudiced  in  favor  of  Ireland.  He  tells  us  that  they 
rose  for  six  reasons.  The  first  was  because  they  were  gen- 
erally looked  down  upon  as  a  conquered  nation,  and  seldom 
or  never  treated  like  natural  or  free-born  subjects.  The  old 
evil  still  coming  up,  my  dear  friends.  The  very  first  reason 
given  by  this  Englishman,  why  the  Irish  people  rose,  was 
that  the  English  people  treated  them  contemptuously.  Oh ! 
when  will  England  learn  to  treat  her  subjects  or  her  friends 
with  common  respect?  When  will  that  proud,  stubborn 
Anglo-Saxon  haughtiness  condescend  to  urbanity  and  kind- 
liness in  dealing  with  those  around  them  ?  I  said  it  in  my 
first  lecture  ;  I  said  it  in  my  second  lecture ;  and  I  now  re- 
peat it  in  this,  that  it  was  the  contempt  as  much  as  the  hat- 
red of  Englishmen  for  Irishmen  that  lay  at  the  root — that 
lies  at  the  root  to-day — of  that  bitter  spirit  and  terrible  an- 
tagonism that  exists  betv/een  those  two  nations. 

The  second  reason  given  by  my  Lord  Castlehaven  is, 
that  the  Irish  saw  that  six  whole  counties  in  Ulster  were 
escheated  to  the  Crown  and  little  or  nothing  restored  to  the 
natives ;  but  in  great  part  bestowed  by  King  James  I.,  on 
his  own  countrymen — the  Scotch.  The  third  reason  was, 
that  in  Strafford's  time,  the  Crown  laid  claim  to  the 
counties  of  Roscommon,  Mayo,  Galway,  and  Cork,  and  to 


THE  CROMWELLIAN  ERA.  83 

parts  of  Tipperaiy,  Wicklow,  Limerick,  and  other  counties. 
The  fourth  reason  was,  that  great  severities  were  used 
against  the  Roman  Catholics,  which  to  a  people  so  fond  of 
their  religion  as  the  Irish  were,  was  no  small  inducement  to 
make  them,  whilst  there  was  an  opportunity,  stand  upon 
theii  guard.  The  fifth  reason  was,  they  saw  how  the  Scots, 
by  pretending  grievances,  and  taking  up  arms  to  get  them 
redressed,  had  not  only  gained  divers  privileges  and  im- 
munities, but  a  grant  of  £300,000,  for  their  visit  to 
England,  besides  £850  a  day  for  several  months  together. 
The  sixth  and  last  reason  was  that  they  saw  the  storm 
drawing  near ; — such  a  misunderstanding  arose  between  the 
King  and  the  Parliament,  that  they  believed  the  King 
would  grant  them  anything  that  they  could  in  reason  de- 
mand ;  at  least  more  now  than  they  could  otherwise  expect. 
Now,  I  ask  if  these  reasons  were  not  sufficient?  I  appeal 
to  the  American  people, — I  appeal  to  men  who  know 
what  civil  and  religious  liberty  means  to  a  proud,  high- 
spirited  people,  whose  spirit  was  never  broken,  and  never 
will  be ; — to  a  people  not  inferior  to  the  Anglo-Saxon,  either 
in  gifts  of  intellect  or  in  bodily  energy ;  for  a  people  thus 
persecuted,  thus  down-trodden, — as  our  fathers  were, — would 
not  any  one  of  these  reasons  be  sufficient  justification  to 
rise  ?  And,  with  this  accumulation  of  causes,  w^ould  they 
not  have  been  the  meanest  of  mankind  if  they  had  not 
seized  upon  that  opportunity  ? 

An  English  Protestant  Avriter  of  the  times,  in  that  very 
year  1641,  writing  in  Howell's  JUbernicKS,  says  that  the 
Irish  had  sundry  grievances  and  grounds  of  complaint  touch- 
ing both  their  estates  and  consciences,  which  they  pretended 
to  be  far  greater  than  those  of  the  Scots.  "  For,  still,  they 
think,"  he  says,  "that  if  the  Scots  were  suffered  to  intro- 
duce  a  new  religion,  it  was  a  reason  that  they  should  not 


84:  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

be  punished  for  the  exercise  of  their  own,  which  they  glo- 
ried never  to  have  altered." 

There  was  another  reason  for  the  revolt,  my  friends,  and 
a  very  potent  one.  It  was  this  :  Charles  had  the  weakness 
and  the  folly — I  can  call  it  nothing  else — to  leave  at  the 
head  of  the  Irish  Government  two  Lords  Justices,  named 
Sir  John  Borlaese  and  Sir  William  Parsons.  These  were 
both  ardent  Puritans  and  partisans  of  the  Parliament. 
They  were  anxious  to  see  the  fall  of  the  English  monarch, — 
for  they  were  his  bitterest  enemies ;  and  they  thought  that 
lie  would  be  embarrassed,  in  his  fight  with  the  Parliament 
in  England,  by  a  revolution  in  Ireland.  And  so  the  very 
men  who  were  the  guardians  of  the  State  lent  themselves  to 
promote  the  rebellion  by  every  means  in  their  power.  For 
instance,  six  months  before  the  revolt  broke  out,  Charles 
gave  them  notice  that  he  had  received  intelligence  that  the 
Irish  were  going  to  rise.  They  took  no  note  whatever  of 
the  King's  advertisement.  The  Lords  of  the  *'  Pale,"  who 
refused  to  join  the  Irish  in  their  uprising,  applied  to  the 
Lords  Justices  in  Dublin  for  protection ;  and  it  was  refused 
them.  They  asked  to  be  allowed  to  come  into  the  city,  that 
they  might  be  safe  from  the  incursions  of  the  Irish.  That 
permission  was  refused  them ;  and  they  were  forced  to  stay 
in  their  castles  and  houses,  out  in  the  country;  and  the 
moment  that  any  of  the  Irish  in  revolt  came  near  them, 
their  houses  and  castles  were  declared  forfeited  to  the  State. 
Thus  the  English  Catholics  and  Lords  of  the  "  Pale," — the 
Gormanstowns,  the  Howths,  the  Trimblestons,  and  many 
others, — were  actually  forced  by  the  Government  to  join 
hands  with  the  Irish,  and  to  draw  their  swords  in  the  glo- 
rious cause  that  was  before  them.  Moreover,  the  Irish 
knew  that  their  friends  and  fellow-countrymen  were  earning 
distinction,  honor,  and  glory,  upon  all  the  battle-fields  of 
Europe,  in  the  service  of  Spain,  France,  and  Austria; — and 


THE  CROMWELLIAN  ERA.  85 

they  Loped,  not  without  reason,  that  these  friends,  theii' 
countrymen,  would  help  them  in  the  hour  of  their  need. 
Accordingly,  on  that  23d  of  October,  1641,  they  rose. 
What  was  the  first  thing  they  did?  According  to  Mr. 
Froude,  the  first  thing  they  did  was  to  massacre  all  the 
Protestants  they  could  lay  their  hands  on.  Well,  thank 
God,  that  is  not  the  fact.  The  very  first  thing  their  leader. 
Sir  Phelim  O'Neill,  did,  was  to  issue  a  proclamation  on  the 
very  day  of  the  rising,  which  he  spread  throughout  all  Ire- 
land, and  in  which  he  declared  : — 

"  We  rise  in  the  name  of  onr  Lord  the  King.  We  rise 
to  assert  the  power  and  prerogative  of  the  King.  We  de- 
clare we  do  not  wish  to  make  war  on  the  King  or  any  oae  of 
his  subjects.  We  declare,  moreover,  that  we  do  not  intend 
to  shed  blood,  except  in  legitimate  warfare  ;  and  that  any 
one  of  our  troops,  any  soldier,  who  robs,  plunders,  or  sheds 
blood,  shall  be  severely  punished." 

Did  they  keep  this  declaration  of  theirs  ?  Most  inviola- 
bly. I  assert  in  the  name  of  history,  that  there  was  no 
massacre  of  the  Protestants  ;  and  I  will  prove  it  from  Prot- 
estant authority.  We  find  dispatches  from  the  Irish  Gov- 
ernment to  the  Government  in  England,  dated  the  25th  to 
the  27th  of  that  same  month,  in  which  they  give  an  account 
of  the  rising  of  the  Irish  people.  There  they  complained, 
telling  how  the  Irish  stripped  their  Protestant  fellow-citizens ; 
how  they  took  their  cattle,  took  their  houses,  took  all  their 
property ;  but  not  one  single  word  or  complaint  about  the 
shedding  of  one  drop  of  blood.  And  if  they  took  their  cat- 
tle, houses,  and  property,  you  must  remember  that  they  were 
only  taking  back  what  was  their  own.  A  very  short  time 
afterwards  the  massacre  began ;  but  who  began  it  ?  The 
Protestant  Ulster  settlers  fled  from  the  Irish.  They  brought 
their  lives  with  them  at  least ;  and  they  entered  the  town  of 
Carrickfergus,  where  they  found  a  garrison  of  Scotch  Puri- 


SQ  ENGLISH  MISRULE  m  IRELAND. 

tans.  Now,  in  the  confusion  that  arose,  the  poor  country 
people,  frightened,  fled  into  an  obscure  part  of  the  country, 
near  Carrickfergus, — a  peninsula,  called  Island  Magee.  They 
were  there  collected  for  the  purposes  of  safety,  to  the  num- 
ber of  more  than  three  thousand.  The  very  first  thing  that 
these  English  Puritans  and  the  Scotch  garrison  did,  when 
tliey  came  together,  was  to  sally  out  of  Carrickfergus,  in  the 
night  time,  and  to  go  in  among  those  innocent  and  unarmed 
people ;  and  they  slaughtered  every  man,  woman,  and  child, 
until  they  left  three  thousand  dead  behind  them.  We  have 
the  authority  of  Leland,  the  English  Protestant  historian, 
who  expressly  says  that  "  this  was  the  first  massacre  com- 
mitted in  Ireland,  on  either  side.'^^  This  was  the  first  massa- 
cre !  How,  in  the  name  of  Heaven,  can  any  man  so  learned, 
and  I  make  no  doubt,  so  truthful  as  Mr.  Froude, — how  can 
he  assert  that  these  people  began  by  massacring  thirty-eight 
thousand  of  his  fellow-countrymen  and  fellow-religionists, 
when  we  have,  in  the  month  of  December,  a  few  months 
after,  a  Commission  issued  by  the  Lords  Justices  in  Dublin 
to  the  Dean  of  Kilmore  and  seven  other  Protestant  clergy- 
men, to  make  diligent  inquiry  about  the  English  and  Scotch 
Protestants  who  were  robbed  and  ^^lundered  y  but  not  one 
single  word — not  one  single  question — of  those  who  were 
tnurdered  ? 

Here  are  the  words  of  Castlehaven : 

''  The  Catholics  were  urged  into  rebellion  ;  and  the  Lords 
Justices  were  often  heard  to  say  that  the  more  that  were  in 
rebellion  the  more  lands  would  be  forfeited  to  the  Crown." 

It  was  the  old  story  ; — it  was  the  old  adage  of  James  the 
First:  "  Poot  out  the  Catholics — root  out  the  Irish,  and 
give  Ireland  to  English  Protestants  and  Puritans,  and  you  will 
regenerate  the  land."  Oil !  from  such  regeneration  of  my 
own  or  any  other  people,  good  Loi'd  deliver  us,  I  pray  ! 
*'  This  rebellion,"  says  Mr.  Froude,  "  began  in  massacre  and 


THE  CnOMWELLIAN  ERA.  87 

It  ended  in  ruin  the  most  terrible  ;  but,  if 
it  began  in  massacre,  Mr.  Fronde,  yon  must  acknowledge, 
as  a  historical  truth,  that  the  massacre  was  on  the  part  of 
your  countrymen,  and  your  co-religionists. 

Then,  the  Irisli  having  risen,  the  war  began.  It  was  a  war 
between  the  Puritan  Protestants  of  Ulster  and  other  parts  of 
Ireland,  aided  by  constant  armies  that  came  over  to  them 
from  England.  It  was  a  war  that  continued  for  eleven  years  ; 
and  it  was  a  war  in  which  the  Irish  Chieftains  had  not  the 
destinies  of  the  nation  in  their  own  hands,  but  were  obliged 
to  fight,  and  fight  like  men,  in  order  to  try  to  achieve  a  better 

destiny  and  a  better  future  for  their  people 

Who  can  say  that  the  Irish  Chieftains  held  the  destinies  of 
Ireland  in  their  own  hands  during  these  nine  years,  when 
they  had  to  meet  every  successive  army  that  came  to  them 
inflamed  wdth  religious  hatred  and  enmity,  and  animated,  I 
must  say,  by  a  spirit  of  bravery  of  which  the  world  has  sel- 
dom seen  the  like.  Then,  Mr.  Fronde  adds  that  these  were 
"  years  of  anarchy  and  mutual  slaughter."  Now  let  us  con- 
sider the  history  of  the  events. 

No  sooner  had  the  English  Lords  of  the  "  Pale  " — who 
were  all  Catholics — joined  the  Irish,  than  they  turned 
to  the  Catholic  Bishops  of  the  land.  They  called  them 
together  in  a  Synod;  and  on  the  10th  of  May,  1642,  the 
Bishops  of  Ireland,  the  Lords  of  Ireland,  and  the  gentry 
and  Commoners  and  estated  gentlemen  of  Ireland  met 
together  and  founded  what  is  called  the  "  Confederation  of 
Kilkenny."  Amongst  their  number  they  selected  for  the 
Supreme  Council,  three  Archbishops,  two  Bishops,  four 
Lords,  and  fifteen  Commoners.  These  men  were  to  meet 
and  remain  in  permanent  session,  watching  over  the  country, 
making  laws,  watching  over  the  army ;  and  above  all,  pre- 
venting cruelty,  robbery,  and  murder.  A  regular  govern- 
ment was  formed.     They  actually  established  a  mint,  and 


88  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND, 

tliere  coined  money  for  the  Irish  nation.  They  established 
an  array  under  Lord  Mountcashel  and  General  Preston ;  and 
in  a  short  time  after,  under  the  glorious  and  immortal  Owen 
Roe  O'Neill.  During  the  hrst  months  they  gained  some 
successes.  Most  of  the  principal  cities  of  Ireland  opened 
their  gates  to  them.  The  garrisons  were  carefully  saved 
from  slaughter ;  and  the  moment  they  laid  down  their  arms 
their  lives  were  as  sacred  as  that  of  any  man  in  the  ranks  of 
the  Irish  armies.  Not  a  drop  of  unnecessary  blood  was 
shed  by  the  Irish  with  any  sort  of  countenance  on  the  part 
of  the  Government  of  the  country — that  is  to  say,  the  Su- 
preme Council  at  Kilkenny.  I  defy  any  man  to  prove  that 
there  was  a  single  law,  which  that  Supreme  Council  enacted, 
that  was  not  enacted  to  prevent  bloodshed  or  murder. 

Now,  after  a  few  months  of  success,  the  armies  of  the 
Confederation  experienced  some  reverses.  The  Puritan 
party  was  recruited  and  fortified  by  English  armies  coming 
in ;  and  the  command  in  Dublin  was  given  to  a  Governor 
whose  name  ought  to  be  known  to  every  Irishman  ; — his 
name  was  Sir  Charles  Coote.  Some  of  his  exploits  are  thus 
portrayed  by  Clarendon,  who  was  no  friend  of  Ireland  : — 

"  Sir  Charles,  besides  plundering  and  burning  the  town 
of  Clontarf,  at  that  time,  did  massacre  sixteen  townspeople, 
men  and  women,  besides  three  suckling  infants ;  and  in  that 
very  same  week  fifty-six  men,  women,  and  children,  in  the 
village  of  Bullock,  being  frightened  at  v^^hat  was  done  at 
Clontarf,  went  to  sea  to  shun  the  fury  of  a  party  of  soldiers, 
who  came  out  from  Dublin  under  command  of  Col.  Ciiflford. 
Being  pursued  by  the  soldiers  in  boats,  they  were  overtaken 
and  thrown  overboard." 

Sir  William  Borlaese  had,  by  letter,  advised  the  Governor, 
Sir  Charles  Coote,  to  burn  all  the  corn,  and  to  give  man, 
woman,  and  child  to  the  sword ;  and  Sir  Arthur  Loftus 
wrote    to    the    same    purpose  and  effect.     An  edict  of  the 


THE  CBOMWELLIAN  ERA.  89 

Council  at  that  time  will  tell  you  in  what  spirit  our  Protes- 
tant friends  waged  their  w^ar  with  us : — 

"  It  is  resolved  that  it  is  fit  that  his  Lordship,"  (and, 
mind,  this  was  given  to  the  Marquis  of  Ormonde,) — "  that 
his  Lordship  do  endeavor  to  wound,  kill,  slay,  and  destroy, 
by  ail  the  ways  and  means  that  he  may,  all  the  said  rebels, 
their  adherents  and  relatives ;  and  burn,  spoil,  waste,  con- 
sume, destroy,  and  demolish,  all  the  places,  towns,  and 
houses  where  the  rebels  are  or  have  been  relieved  or  har- 
bored ;  and  all  the  hay  and  corn  therein,  and  kill  and  de- 
stroy all  the  men  there  inhabiting  capable  of  bearing  arms. 
Given  at  the  Castle  of  Dublin,  on  the  23d  day  of  February, 
1641,"  and  signed  by  six  precious  names. 

Listen  to  this  : — 

"  Sir  Arthur  Loftus,  Governor  of  Naas,  marched  out  with 
a  party  of  horse.  He  was  met  on  the  way,  and  joined  by 
another  party  sent  from  Dublin,  by  the  Marquis  of  Or- 
monde ;  and  they  both  together  killed  such  of  the  Irish  as 
they  met,  and  did  not  stop  to  inquire  whether  they  were 
rebels  or  not." 

But,  oh  !  my  friends,  listen  to  this :  — 

"  But  the  most  considerable  slaughter  was  in  a  great  strait 
of  furze,  situated  on  a  hill,  v/here  the  people  of  several  vil- 
lages, taking  alarm,  had  sheltered  themselves.  Now,  Sir 
Arthur  having  invested  the  hill,  set  fire  to  the  furze  on  all 
sides,  w^here  the  people  being  in  considerable  numbers,  were 
all  burned,  men,  women,  and  children.  I  saw,"  (says  Castle- 
haven,)  "  the  bodies  and  the  furze  still  burning." 

"In  the  year  1641  or  1642,  many  thousands  of  poor  in- 
nocent people  of  the  county  of  Dublin,  shunning  the  fury  of 
the  English  soldiery,  fled  into  the  thickets,  w^hLch  the  sol- 
diers actually  fired,  killing  as  many  as  attempted  to  esca2>e, 
or  forcing  them  back  to  be  burned.  And,  as  to  the  rest  of 
wiC  inhabitants,  for  the  most  part,  they  died  of  famine." 

Not  only  by  land,  where  we  read,  sometimes,  of  seven 
thousand  of  our  people,  men,  women,  and  children,  without 
discrimination,  being  destroyed  by  these  demons, — not  only 


90  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

were  the  Irish  pursued  on  the  land,  but  even  on  the  sea. 
We  read  that  there  was  a  hiw  passed  that  if  any  Irishmen 
were  found  on  boa,rd  ship,  by  his  IMajesty's  cruisers,  they 
were  to  be  destroyed.     Clarendon  gives  this  account : — 

"The  Earl  of  Warwick,  as  often  as  he  met  an  Irish  frigate, 
or  such  freebooters  as  sailed  under  commission,  all  the  sea- 
men who  became  prisoners  who  belonged  to  the  nation  of 
Ireland ;  they  tied  them,  back  to  back,  and  threw  them  over- 
board into  the  sea,  without  distinction  as  to  their  condi- 
tion, for  they  were  only  Irish."  "  In  this  cruel  manner  very 
many  poor  men  perished  daily.  Of  all  of  which  the  King 
knew  nothing,  and  said  nothing,  because  his  Ma;jesty  could 
not  complain  of  it  without  being  concerned  in  it,  in  favor 
of  the  rebels  in  Ireland." 

Again  : — 

"  The  Marquis  of  Ormonde  sent  Captain  Anthony  Wil- 
loughby,  with  150  men,  who  had  formerly  served  in  the 
fort  at  Galway,  from  thence  to  Bristol,  to  look  after  and 
follow  a  party  of  men  who  were  in  the  SQj^-vice  of  the  King, 
and  had  actually  fought  for  him.  The  ship  in  which  they 
sailed  was  taken  by  Capt.  Swanley,  who  threw  seventy  of 
the  soldiers,  who  were  Irish,  overboard,  although  these 
same  soldiers  had  faithfully  served  his  Majesty  against  the 
rebels  during  all  the  time  of  the  war." 

You  will  ask  me,  '^  Was  that  Captain  punished  for  the 
murder  ? "  Here  is  the  punishment  he  got.  In  June, 
1G44,  we  read  in  the  Journal  of  the  English  House  of  Com- 
mons, tha.t  Capt.  Swanley  was  called  into  the  House,  and 
had  thanks  given  to  him  for  his  good  service,  and  a  chain  of 
gold,  equal  in  value  to  £200 ;  and  that  Captain  Smith  also 
had  another  of  £100  in  value  given  him. 

"  Sir  Richard  Grenville  was  very  much  esteemed  by  the 
Earl  of  Leicester,  who  was  Lord  Lieutenant  for  Ireland ; — • 
and  more  still  by  the  Parliament,  for  the  signal  acts  of 
cruelty  he  committed  on  the  Irish ;  hanging  old  men  who 
were   bedridden,   because   they  v/ouid  not   discover   where 


THE  CBOUWELLIAN  ERA.  91 

their  money  was  bidden;  and  old  women,  some  of  tliem  of 
quality,  after  lie  Iiad  plundered  them,  and  found  less  than 
he  expected." 

In  a  word,  they  committed  atrocities  which  I  am  ashamed 
and  afraid  to  mention.  The  soldiers  tossed  the  infants 
taken  from  their  dead  mothers'  bosoms  on  their  bayonets. 
Sir  Charles  Coote  saw  one  of  his  soldiers  playing  with  a 
child,  throwing  it  into  the  air,  and  then  spitting  it  upon  his 
bayonet  as  it  fell;  and  he  laughed  and  said  "he enjoyed  such 
frolic  "  !  They  brought  children  into  the  world  before  their 
time  by  the  Csesarean  operation  of  the  sword ;  and  the  chil- 
dren thus  brought  forth  in  misery  from  out  the  wombs  of 
their  dead  mothers,  they  immolated  and  sacrificed  in  the 
most  cruel  and  terrible  manner.  I  am  afraid, — I  say,  again, 
I  am  afraid  of  your  blood  and  mine,  to  tell  you  the  one- 
tenth,  aye,  the  one-hundredth  part  of  the  cruelties  that 
those  terrible  men  put  upon  our  people. 

Now,  I  ask  you  to  contrast  this  with  the  manner  in  which 
the  Irish  troops  and  the  Irish  people  behaved.  Lord  Castle- 
haven  says : 

"  I  took  Naas,  and  I  found  in  it  a  garrison  of  English 
soldiers,  seven  hundred  strong ;  and  I  saved  the  life  of  every 
man  amongst  them,  and  made  them  a  present  to  General 
Oliver  Cromwell,  with  the  request  that,  in  like  circum- 
stances, he  would  do  the  same  by  me." 

But  it  was  only  a  few  days  later  the  town  of  Gouran 
capitulated.  Cromwell  promised  quarter ;  but  as  soon  as  he 
entered,  he  took  the  governor  of  the  town,  and  all  the  offi- 
cers of  the  army,  and  put  them  all  to  death. 

''  Sir  Wm.  St.  Leger,  going  down  into  Munster,  slaugh- 
tered every  man,  woman,  and  child  he  met  on  his  marcli ; 
and,  among  others,  was  a  man  named  Philip  Ryan,  who  was 
the  principal  farmer  of  the  place,  whom  he  put  to  death 
without  the  slightest  hesitation.  But  some  of  Philip  Eyan's 
friends,  brothers,  and  relatives,  retaliated  somewhat  on  the 


92  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

English ;    and  there  was   a  fear  that  the  Catholic   peopk*^ 
would  massacre  all  the  Protestant  inhabitants  of  the  place." 

Now,  mark  what  follows: — 

"  All  the  rest  of  the  English  "—(this  is  in  Carte's  "  Lif(3 
of  Ormonde  ") — "  all  the  rest  of  the  English  were  saved  by 
the  inhabitants  of.  that  place ;  their  houses  and  all  their 
goods,  which  they  confided  to  them,  were  safely  returned. 
Doctor  Samuel  PuUen,  the  Protestant  Chancellor  of  Cashel, 
and  the  Dean  of  Cionfert,  with  his  wife  and  children,  were 
preserved  by  Father  James  Saul,  a  Jesuit.  Several  other 
Pomish  priests  distinguished  themselves  on  this  occasion  by 
their  endeavors  to  save  the  English.  One  Father  Joseph 
Everard  and  Father  Pedmond  English,  both  of  them  Fran- 
ciscan Friars,  hid  some  of  them  in  their  chapel,  and  actually 
under  the  very  altar.  The  English  who  were  thus  pre- 
served were,  according  to  their  desires,  safely  conducted 
into  the  county  Cork  by  a  guard  of  the  Irish  inhabitants  of 
Cashel." 

Now,  my  friends,  the  war  went  on,  from  1641  to  1649, 
with  varying  success.  Cardinal  Rinuccini  was  sent  over  by 
the  Pope  to  preside  over  the  Supreme  Council  of  the  Con- 
federation of  Kilkenny,  and  about  the  same  time  news  came 
to  Ireland  that  gladdened  the  nation's  heart,  namely,  that 
the  illustrious  Owen  Poe  O'Neill  had  landed  on  the  coast 
of  Ulster.  This  man  was  one  of  the  most  distinguished 
officers  in  the  Spanish  service  at  a  time  when  the  Spanish 
infantry  were  acknowledged  to  bo  the  finest  troops  in  the 
world.  He  landed  in  Ireland,  he  organized  an  arm}^,  drilled 
them,  and  armed  them,  however  imperfectly.  But  he  was  a 
host  in  himself;  and,  in  the  second  year  after  his  arrival,  he 
drew  up  his  army  to  meet  General  Monroe,  and  his  English 
forces,  at  the  ford  of  Benburb,  on  the  Black  water.  The 
battle  began  in  the  morning,  and  raged  throughout  the  early 
hours  of  the  day ;  and,  before  the  evening  sun  had  set, 
England's  main  and  best  army  was  flying  in  confusion,  and 


THE  CBOMYiELLnm  EUA.  93 

thousands  of  lier  best  soldiers  were  stretched  upon  the  fiekl 
and  choked  the  ford  of  Benburb ;  v/Liie  the  Irish  soldier 
stood  triumphant  upon  the  field  which  his  genius  and  his 
valor  had  won. 

Partly  through  the  treachery  of  Ormonde  and  Preston ; 
partly  and  mainly  through  the  English  lords  who  were  co- 
quetting with  the  English  Government,  the  Confederation 
began  to  experience  some  of  its  most  disastrous  defeats  ;  and 
Ireland\s  cause  was  already  broken,  and  almost  lost,  when, 
in  the  year  1G49,  Oliver  Cromwell  arrived  in  Ireland.  Mr. 
Froude  says,  and  truly,  that  be  "  did  not  come  to  make  war 
with  rose-\vater,"  but  with  the  thick  warm  blood  of  the  Irish 
people.  And  Mr.  Froude  prefaces  the  introduction  of  Oliver 
Cromwell  in  Ireland  by  telling  us  that  the  Lord-General  was 
a  great  friend  of  Ireland,  that  he  was  a  liberal-minded  man, 
and  that  ho  interfered  with  no  man's  liberty  of  conscience. 
And  he  adds  that, — "  If  CromwelFs  policy  were  carried  out, 
in  all  probability  I  would  not  be  here  speaking  to  you  of  our 
difficulties  with  Ireland  to-da,y."  He  adds,  moreover,  that 
"  Cromwell  had  formed  a  design  for  the  pacification  of  Ire- 
land, v.diich  would  have  made  future  trouble  there  impossi- 
ble." What  was  this  design?  Lord  Macaulay  tells  us 
what  this  design  was.  Cromwell's  avowed  purpose  was  to 
end  all  difficulties  in  Ireland, — whether  they  arose  from  the 
land  question  or  from  the  religious  question, — by  putting  a 
total  and  entire  end  to  the  Irish  race ;  by  extirpating  them 
off  the  face  of  the  earth.  This  was  an  admirable  policy,  my 
friends,  in  order  to  pacify  Ireland  and  create  peace :  for  the 
best  way  and  the  simplest  way  to  keep  any  man  quiet  is  to 
cut  his  throat.  The  dead  do  not  speak ;  the  dead  do  not 
move  ;  the  dead  do  not  trouble  any  one.  Cromwell  came  to 
destroy  the  Irish  race,  and  the  Irish  Catholic  faith  of  the 
people,  and  so  put  an  end  at  once  to  all  claims  for  land,  and 
to  all  disturbances  arising  out  of  religious  persecution.     But, 


04:  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

I  ask  this  learned  gentleman,  does  he  imagine  that  the  peo- 
ple of  America  are  either  so  ignorant  or  so  wicked  as  to  ac- 
cept the  monstrous  proposition  that  a  man  who  came  into 
Ireland  with  such  an  avowed  purpose  as  this  can  be  declared 
a  friend  of  the  real  interests  of  the  Irish  people  ?  Does  he 
imagine  that  there  is  no  intelligence  in  America,  that  there 
is  no  manhood  in  America,  that  there  is  no  love  of  freedom" 
in  America,  no  love  of  religion  and  of  life  in  America  ?  And 
the  man  must  be  an  enemy  of  freedom,  of  religion,  and  of 
life  itself  before  such  a  man  can  sympathize  with  the  blood- 
stained Oliver  Cromwell.  These  words  of  the  historian,  I 
regret  to  say,  sound  like  bitter  irony  and  mockery  in  the 
ears  of  the  j^eople  whose  fathers  CroniAvell  came  to  destroy. 
But  he  says  the  Lord  Protector  did  not  interfere  with  any 
man's  conscience.  The  Irish  demanded  liberty  of  conscience. 
"  I  interfere  with  no  man's  conscience,"  said  Cromwell :  "  but 
if,  by  liberty  of  conscience,  you.  Catholics,  mean  having 
priests  and  the  Mass,  I  tell  you  you  cannot  have  this ;  and 
you  never  will  have  it,  as  long  as  the  Parliament  of  England 
lias  power  to  prevent  it."  I  now  ask  you,  my  friends,  what 
these  words  mean  ?  To  grant  the  Catholics  liberty  of  con- 
science, their  conscience  telling  them  that  their  first  and 
greatest  duty  is  to  hear  the  Mass ;  to  grant  them  liberty  of 
conscience,  and  then  deny  them  priests  to  say  the  Mass :  as- 
suredly it  is  a  contradiction  in  words :  it  is  an  insult  to  the 
intelligence,  to  propound  so  extravag^it  a  proposition ! 
"  Oh !  but,"  Mr.  Froude  says,  "  you  must  go  easy.  Of 
course,  I  acknov/ledge  that  the  Mass  is  a  beautiful  rite,  an- 
cient and  beautiful ;  but  you  must  remember  that,  in  Crom- 
well's mind,  the  Mass  meant  the  system  that  was  shedding 
blood  all  over  Europe ;  the  system  of  the  Church  that  never 
knew  mercy,  that  slaughtered  the  Protestants  everywhere ; 
and  therefore  he  was  resolved  to  have  none  of  it."  Ah ! 
my  fiiends,  if  the    Mass    were    the    symbol    of  slaughter. 


THE  CROMYiELLIAN  EBA.  95 

Oliver  Cromwell  would  have  had  more  sympathy  with  th(? 
Mass. 

And  so  the  historian  seeks  to  justify  cruelty  in  Ireland 
against  the  Catholics,  by  alleging  cruelty  on  the  part  of  Cath- 
olics, against  their  Protestant  fellow-subjects  in  other  lands. 
Now,  these  words  the  historian  has  repeated,  over  and  over 
again,  in  many  of  his  writings,  and  at  other  times,  and  in 
other  places ;  and  I  may  as  well  at  once  put  an  end  to  this. 
Mr.  Froude  says :  "  I  hold  the  Catholic  Church  accountable 
for  all  the  blood  that  the  Duke  of  Alva  shed  in  the  Nether- 
lands ; "  and  I  say  to  Mr.  Froude  I  deny  it.  Alva  fought 
in  the  Netherlands  against  the  subjects  that  rebelled  against 
Spain.  Alva  fought  in  the  Netherlands  against  a  people  the 
first  principle  of  whose  new  religion  seemed  to  be  an  upris- 
ing against  the  authority  of  the  State.  With  Alva  or  his 
state  questions  the  Catholic  Church  had  nothing  to  do ;  and 
if  Alva  shed  the  blood  of  rebels,  and  if  those  who  rebelled 
happened  to  be  Protestants,  that  is  no  reason  to  father  the 
shedding  of  that  blood  upon  the  Catholic  Church.  Mr. 
Froude  says  that  the  Catholic  Church  is  responsible  for  the 
blood  that  was  shed  in  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew's 
Day,  by  Mary  de  Medicis,  in  France.  I  deny  it.  The 
woman  that  gave  that  order  had  no  sympathy  with  the 
Catholic  Church.  It  was  altogether  a  State  measure.  She 
saw  France  divided  into  factions ;  and  she  endeavored,  by 
court  intrigue  and  villainy  of  her  own — for  a  most  villainous 
woman  she  was — she  endeavored  to  stifle  opposition  in  the 
blood  of  the  people.  Tidings  were  sent  to  Pome  that  the 
King's  life  was  in  danger,  and  that  that  life  had  been  pre- 
served by  Heaven ;  and  Pome  sang  a  Te  Deum  for  the  safety 
of  the  King,  and  not  for  the  blood  of  the  Huguenots. 
Amongst  the  Huguenots  there  were  Catholics  that  were 
slain,  because  they  were  of  the  opposite  faction ;  and  that 


96  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IBELAND. 

alone  proves  that  the  Catholic  Church  was  not  answerable 
for  the  shedding  of  such  blood. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  blood  that  was  shed  in  Ire- 
land was  .shed  exclusively  on  account  of  religion,  at  this 
particular  time ;  for  when,  in  1643,  Charles  I.  made  a 
treaty  for  a  cessation  of  hostilities  with  the  Confederation 
of  Kilkenny,  the  English  Parliament,  as  soon  as  they  heard 
that  the  King  had  ceased  hostilities  for  a  time  with  the 
Irish  Catholics,  at  once  intervened,  and  said  the  war  must 
go  on.  They  said  :  "  We  will  not  allow  hostilities  to  cease ; 
we  must  root  out  these  Irish  Papists,  or  else  we  shall  incur 
danger  to  the  Protestant  religion."  I  regret  to  say,  my 
Protestant  friends,  that  the  men  of  1643,  the  members  of 
the  Puritan  Houses  of  Parliament  in  England,  have  fas- 
tened upon  that  form  of  religion  which  you  profess  the  for- 
mal argument  and  reason  why  Irish  blood  should  flow  in 
torrents, — lest  the  Protestant  religion  might  suffer!  In 
these  days  of  ours,  when  we  are  endeavoring  to  put  away 
all  sectarian  bigotry,  we  deplore  the  faults  committed  by 
our  fathers  on  both  sides.  Mr.  Froude  deplores  the  blood 
that  was  shed  as  much  as  I  do ;  but,  my  friends,  it  is  a  his- 
torical question,  arising  upon  historic  facts  and  evidence ; 
and  I  am  bound  to  appeal  to  history  as  well  as  my  learned 
antagonist,  and  to  discriminate  and  put  back  the  word 
which  he  puts  out,  namely,  that  toleration  is  the  genius  of 
Protestantism.  He  asserts — and  it  is  an  astounding  asser- 
tion— in  this,  his  third  lecture,  that  religious  persecution 
was  hostile  to  the  genius  of  Protestantism.  Nay,  he  goes 
further.  Speaking  of  the  Mass,  he  says,  that  "  the  Catho- 
lic Church  has  learned  to  borrow  one  beautiful  gem  from 
the  crown  of  her  adversary.  She  has  learned  to  respect  the 
consciences  of  others."  I  wish  that  the  learned  gentleman's 
statements  could  be  more  approved  by  history.  Oh !  much 
I  desire  that,  in  saying  those  words,  he  had  spoken  historic 


TEE  CROMWELLIAN  ERA.  97 

truths !  No  doubt  he  believes  v/hat  he  says ;  but  I  ask 
him,  and  I  ask  every  Protestant  here,  at  what  time,  in  what 
age,  or  in  what  land  has  Protestantism  ever  been  in  the 
ascendant  without  persecuting  the  Catholics  who  were 
around  them  ?  It  is  not  in  bitterness  I  say  it,  but  it  is 
simply  as  a  historic  truth.  I  cannot  find  any  record  of  his- 
tory,— any  time  during  these  ages,  up  to  a  few  years  ago, — 
any  time  when  the  Protestants  in  England,  in  Ireland,  in 
Sweden,  in  Germany,  or  anywhere  else  gave  the  slightest 
toleration,  or  even  permission  to  live,  where  they  could 
take  it  from  their  Catholic  fellow-subjects.  Even  to-day 
where  is  the  strongest  spirit  of  religious  persecution  exhib- 
ited ?  Is  it  not  in  Protestant  Sweden  ?  Is  it  not  in  Prot- 
estant Denmark  ?  And  who  to-day  are  persecuting  ?  I 
ask  you  is  it  Catholics  ?  No,  but  Protestant  Bismarck,  in 
Germany.  All  this  I  say  with  regret.  I  am  not  only  a 
Catholic,  but  a  priest ;  not  only  a  priest,  but  a  monk  ; 
not  only  a  monk,  but  a  Dominican  monk  ;  and,  from  out 
the  depths  of  my  soul,  I  repel  and  repudiate  the  principle 
of  religious  persecution  in  any  cause,  or  in  any  age,  or  in 
any  land. 

Oliver  Cromwell,  the  apostle  of  blessings  to  Ireland  ! 
landed  in  1G49,  and  went  to  work.  He  besieged  Drogheda, 
which  was  defended  by  Sir  Arthur  Aston  and  a  brave  gar- 
rison. He  made  a  breach  in  the  walls ;  and  when  the  gar- 
rison found  that  their  position  was  no  longer  tenable,  they 
asked,  in  tlie  military  language  of  the  day,  if  they  would  be 
spared, — if  quarter  would  be  given  them.  And  quarter 
was  promised  if  all  the  men  would  cease  fighting  and  lay 
down  their  arms.  They  did  so  ;  and  the  promise  was  ob- 
served until  the  town  v^ras  taken.  When  the  town  was  in 
his  hands,  Oliver  Cromwell  gave  orders  to  his  army  for 
the  indiscriminate  massacre  of  the  garrison,  and  every  man, 
woman,  and  child  in  that  large  city.  The  people,  v/hen 
5 


98  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

tliey  saw  the  soldiers  slain  around  them, — ^v^hen  they  sa"v\  so 
many  killed  on  every  side. — when  they  saw  the  streets  of 
Drogheda  flowing  wdth  blood  for  five  days, — fled  to  the 
number  of  one  thousand  aged  men,  women,  and  children, 
and  took  refuge  in  the  great  church  of  St.  Peter,  in  Drog- 
heda. Oliver  Cromwell  drew  his  soldiers  around  that 
church,  and  out  of  that  church  he  never  allowed  one  of 
those  thousand  innocent  people  to  escape  alive.  He  then 
proceeded  to  Wexford,  vrhere  a  certain  commander  named 
Stafford  admitted  him  into  the  city ;  and  he  massacred  the 
people  there  again.  Three  hundred  of  the  w^omen  of  Wex- 
ford, A\dth  their  little  children,  gathered  round  the  great 
market-cross  in  the  public  square  of  the  city.  They 
thought  in  their  hearts  that  all  terrible  as  Cromwell  was, 
he  would  respect  the  sign  of  man's  redemption  and  spare 
those  who  were  under  the  arms  of  the  Cross.  Oh!  how 
vain  the  thought !  Three  hundred  poor  defenceless  women 
were  there,  screaming  for  mercy,  under  the  Cross  of  Jesus 
Christ;  and  Cromwell  and  his  barbarous  demons  around 
them,  destroying  them,  so  as  not  to  let  one  of  these  inno- 
cents escaj)e  ;  until  they  were  ankle  deep  in  the  blood  of  the 
women  of  Wexford ! 

Cromwell  retired  from  Ireland  after  having  glutted  him- 
self with  the  blood  of  the  people.  He  retii-ed  from  Ireland ; 
but  he  wound  up  the  war  by  taking  80,000, — some  say 
100,000, — of  the  men  of  Ireland,  and  driving  them  down  to 
the  southern  ports  of  Munster,  where  he  shipped  them — 
80,000  at  the  lowest  calculation — he  shipped  them  to  the 
sugar  plantations  of  the  Barbadoes,  there  to  work  as  slaves  ; 
,and  in  six  years  time,  such  was  the  treatment  they  re- 
ceived, that,  out  of  eighty  thousand,  there  were  only  twenty 
men  left.  He  collected  six  thousand  Irish  boys,  fair  and 
beautiful  stripling  youths ;  and  he  put  them  into  ships  and 
sent  them  off  also  to  the  Barbadoes,  there  to  languish  and 


THE  CROMWELLIAN  ERA.  99 

die  before  ever  tliey  came  to  the  fulness  of  their  age  and 
manhood.  Oh !  great  Go*d !  is  this  the  man  that  has  an 
apologist  in  the  learned,  the  frank,  the  generous  and  gent!  e- 
manlj  historian,  who  comes  in  oily  words  to  tell  the  Amer- 
ican people  that  Cromwell  was  one  of  the  bravest  men  that 
ever  lived,  and  one  of  the  best  friends  that  Ireland  ever 
had! 

Now,  we  must  pass  on.  Oliver  Cromwell  died  in  1658. 
Here  is  a  most  singular  assertion  of  Mr.  Froude,  who  tells 
us  that,  much  as  he  regrets  all  the  blood  that  was  shed,  and 
all  the  terrible  vengeance  that  was  poured  out,  still  it  result- 
ed in  great  good  to  Ireland ;  and  the  good  consisted  in  this  : 
— The  Parliament,  after  Cromwell's  victories,  found  them- 
selves masters  of  Ireland,  and  the  Irish  people  lying  in 
blood  and  in  ruin  before  them.  What  was  their  next  move  ? 
Their  next  move  was  to  pass  a  law  driving  all  the  jieople  of 
Ireland  who  owned  any  portion  of  the  land, — all  the  Irish 
land-owners, — and  all  the  Catholics, — out  of  Ulster,  Mun- 
ster,  and  Leinster ;  and,  on  the  1st  of  May,  1C54,  all  the 
inhabitants  of  Ireland  were  driven  across  the  Shannon  into 
Connaught.  The  coarse  phrase  used  by  the  Lord  Protector, 
on  this  occasion,  was  that  they  were  to  "go  to  hell,  or  to 
Connaught  " !  The  solemnity  of  the  historic  occasion  which 
brings  us  together  will  not  permit  me  to  make  any  remark 
upon  such  a  phrase  as  this.  However,  the  Irish  did  not 
choose  to  go  to  hell,  but  they  were  obliged  to  go  to  Con- 
naught      Lest,  however,  that  any  relief 

might  come  to  them  by  sea, — lest  they  might  ever  enjoy  the 
sight  of  the  fair  provinces  and  fair  lands  that  were  once 
their  own, — the  English  Parliament  made  a  law  that  no 
Irishman,  banished  into  Connaught,  was  to  come  within  four 
miles  of  the  river  Shannon,  on  one  side,  or  four  miles  of  the 
sea  on  the  other  side.  There  was  a  cordon  of  English 
soldieiy  and  English  forts  drawn  around  them ;  and  there 


100  EJS-GLISH  MISRULE  m  IRELAND. 

tliey  were  to  live,  in  the  bogs,  in  the  fastnesses,  and  iu  the 
wild  wastes  of  the  most  desolate  country  in  Ireland;  and 
there  they  were  doomed  to  expire  by  cold,  by  famine,  and 
by  every  form  of  sniiering  that  their  Heavenly  Father 
might  permit  to  fall  upon  them. 

Tlien  we  read  that  numbers  of  Englishmen  came  over  ; — ■ 
and  I  don't  blame  them  ; — for  the  fair,  plains  of  Munster 
were  there  Vv'aiting  for  them.  The  splendid  vales  of  Leinster 
were  there,  v^^ith  their  green  bosoms  waiting  for  the  hand 
that  would  put  in  the  ploughshare  or  the  spade  into  the 
bountiful  earth ; — waiting  for  an  owner.  So  the  English 
came  from  every  direction  to  get  this  fair  land  of  Ireland, — 
WiQ  fairest  under  heaven.  Cromwell  settled  down  his 
troopers  there,  —  chose  rough,  Puritan  soldiers,  who  came  to 
Ireland  with  the  Bible  in  one  hand  and  the  sword  in  the 
other.  They  took  possession  of  the  country  ;  and,  according 
to  Mr.  Froude,  here  is  the  benefit  that  resulted  from  Crom- 
well's transplantation, — that,  "  in  fifteen  years,  they  changed 
Ireland  into  a  garden  " !  All  the  bogs  were  drained  ! — all 
the  fields  were  fenced  in  !  and  all  the  meadows  were  mowed ! 
all  the  fallow  fields  were  ploughed ;  and  the  country  was 
smiling  in  peace  !  There  never  was  anything  so  fine  seen  in 
Ireland,  as  the  state  of  things  brought  about  by  Cromwell ! 
More  than  that ;  the  poor  Irish  peasantry,  that  were  harass- 
ed and  plundered  by  the  priests,  and  bishops,  and  chieftains, 
now  enjoyed  j^eace  and  quiet  and  comfort  as  the  servants  of 
the  new  English  owners  and  possessors  of  the  soil !  Well ! 
I  wish,  for  Ireland's  sake,  that  this  picture  were  true.  I 
would  have  no  objection  to  see  one-half  of  Ireland  in  the 
hands,  for  a  time,  of  the  English  settlers,  if  the  other  half 
was  possessed  by  the  Irish,  and  they  lived  there  happy  and 
comfortable  in  their  homes.  But  these  fifteen  years,  of 
which  Mr.  Froude  speaks,  must  have  begun  in  1G53  ;  because 
it  was  only  in  September  of  that  year  that  the  Englisli  Par- 


THE  CnOMWELLIAN  ERA.  101 

liament  declared  the  war  over  in  Ireland.  Up  to  that  time 
there  was  war  and  bloodshed.  IsTow  there  was  peace ;  but 
what  kind  of  peace  ?  Oh,  my  friends^  they  made  a  solitude, 
— they  made  a  desert ;  and  Mr.  Froude  calls  it  peace  !  He 
calls  it  peace  ;  and  it  was  a  peaceful  desert ! 

Oliver  Cromwell  died  in  1658  :  and  now  I  want  to  read 
for  you  the  state  of  Ireland — the  "  garden  " — Mr.  FrouSe's 
"  garden," — at  that  time : — 

*'  Ireland,  in  the  language  of  Scripture,  now  lay  void  as  a 
wilderness.  Five-sixths  of  her  people  had.perished.  Men, 
women,  and  children  were  found  daily  perishing  in  the 
ditches — starved.  The  bodies  of  many  wandering  orphans, 
whose  fathers  had  embarked  for  Spaiu,  and  whose  mothers 
had  died  of  famine,  were  preyed  upon  by  the  wolves." 

In  the  years  1652  and  '53,  a  terrible  famine  had  swept 
over  the  whole  country  ;  so  that  a  man  might  travel  twenty 
or  thirty  miles  and  not  see  a  living  creature.  Man,  beast, 
and  bird,  were  all  dead,  or  had  quitted  those  desolate  places. 
The  troopers  would  tell  stories  of  places  w*here  they  saw  a 
smoke, — it  was  so  rare  to  see  either  fire  or  smoke  by  day  or 
by  night.  In  two  or  three  cabins  where  the  soldiers  went, 
they  found  none  but  aged  men,  women,  and  children,  who, 
in  the  words  of  the  Prophet,  had  "  become  like  a  bottle  in 
the  smoke — their  skins  black  like  an  oven,  because  of  the 
terrible  famine."  They  were  seen  to  eat  the  filthy  carrion 
out  of  the  ditches, — black  and  rotten, — so  great  was  their 
hunger.  It  was  even  said  that  they  took  the  corpses  out  of 
the  graves.  A  party  of  horsemen,  out  hunting  "  Tories," 
on  a  dark  night,  descried  a  light,  and  thought  it  was  a  fire 
which  the  Tories  had  made.  They  used  to  make  fires  in 
those  vraste  places,  to  cook  their  food  and  warm  themselves. 
Drawing  near,  they  saw  that  it  was  a  ruined  cabin.  Sur- 
rounding it  on  all  sides,  some  of  them  alighted  and  peeped 
in  at  the  window ;  and  there  they  saw  a  great  fire  of  wood, 


102  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

and,  sitting  around  it,  was  a  company  of  miserable  old 
women  and  children ;  and  there,  between  them  and  the  fire, 
a  corpse  lay  broiling,  which,  as  the  fire  roasted  it,  they  cut 
and  ate  ! 

The  year  before  Cromwell  died,  in  1657,  we  find  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Irish  Parliament,  Major  Morgan,  declaring  that 
the  whole  land  of  Ireland  was  in  ruins.  "  For,  besides  the 
cost,"  he  says,  "  of  rebuilding  the  churches  and  court- 
houses, and  the  market-houses, — they  were  under  very  heavy 
charges  for  publip  rewards,  paid  for  the  destruction  of  three 
beasts."  What  do  you  think  the  three  "beasts"  were? 
The  wolf,  the  priest,  and  the  Tory!  Nov/  let  me  explain 
the  state  of  this  "  garden  "  to  you.  During  those  fifteen 
years,  of  which  Mr.  Froude  speaks  so  flatteringly,  there  was 
actually  a  grant  of  land  issued,  within  nine  miles  of  the 
city  of  Dublin,  on  the  north  side, — that  is  to  say,  on  the 
most  cultivated  side, — to  a  man — with  an  abatement  of  one 
hundred  pounds  a  year  in  his  rent, — provided  he  would  en- 
gage to  kill  the  wolves.  The  wolves  increased  in  Ireland 
from  the  desolate  state  of  the  country.  They  fed  upon  the 
carcasses  of  men  and  beasts ;  and  they  increased  in  Ireland, 
so  that,  actually,  they  came  famished  up  to  the  very  gates 
of  Dublin,  and  had  to  be  driven  away  !  Does  this  look  like 
a  "  garden "  ?  Is  this  the  kingdom  of  peace,  plenty,  and 
happiness,  where  the  Irish  peasant  was,  at  length,  getting 
fat  in  comfort ;  where  everything  was  peace  and  serenity  ; — ■ 
where  the  bogs  were  all  drained,  and  the  fields  were  so  care- 
fully fenced  in,  by  the  dear  Cromwellians  that  had  got  pos- 
session of  the  land?  When  the  relics  of  the  Irish  army 
were  embarking  for  Spain,  some  of  the  Irish  officers  had  their 
dogs, — magnificent  Irish  wolf-dogs,— which  thc^y  wanted  to 
take  with  them  ;  but  they  were  stopped  ;  and  the  dogs  were 
taken  from  them,  for  the  purpose  of  hunting  the  wolves  that 


THE  CROMWELLIAIT  EBA.  103 

infested    the    country.      That   is   my  first    answer   to    Mr. 
Fronde's  assertion  that  Ireland  was  a  "  garden." 

The  second  "  beast  "  mentioned  by  Major  Morgan,  in  the 
Irish  Honse  of  Commons,  was  the  priest.  He  was  to  be 
hunted  down  like  the  wolf.  There  were  five  pounds  set 
upon  the  head  of  a  dog-wolf,  and  there  were  live  pounds  set 
upon  the  head  of  a  priest ;  and  ten  pounds  upon  the  head 
of  a  Bishop  or  a  Jesuit.  ]Mr.  Froude  says  that  these  severe 
laws  were  not  put  into  execution.  He  tells  us  that,  while 
Parliament  passed  these  laws,  they  privately  instructed  the 
magistrates  that  they  were  not  to  execute  them.  Not 
they  ! — so  merciful,  so  tolerant  is  the  genius  of  Mr.  Fronde's 
Protestantism !  We  have,  however,  the  terrible  fact  before 
us,  that  Parliament  after  Parliament  made  law  after  law, 
commanding  the  magistrates,  under  heavy  fines, — ^under 
heavy  penalties  of  fine  and  forfeiture, — to  execute  these 
laws.  We  find  the  country  filled  with  informers ;  we  find 
priest-hunting  actually  reduced  to  a  profession  in  Ireland ; 
and  we  find,  strange  enough,  Portuguese  Jews,  coming  all 
the  way  from  Portugal,  in  order  to  hunt  priests  in  Ireland, 
so  profitable  was  the  occupation.  In  1698,  under  William 
the  Third,  there  were  in  Ireland  495  regular  and  872  secu- 
lar priests;  and  in  that  very  year,  out  of  495  friars,  424 
were  shipped  off  from  Ireland  into  banishment,  into  sla- 
very ;  and,  of  the  800  and  odd  secular  priests  that  remained 
in  the  land,  not  one  of  them  would  be  allowed  to  say  Mass, 
in  public  or  private,  until  he  first  took  the  Oath  of  Abjura- 
tion, and  renounced  the  See  of  Pome ;  in  other  words,  un- 
less he  became  a  Protestant.  It  is  all  very  well  for  my 
learned  friend  to  tell  us  that  the  laws  were  not  put  into  exe- 
cution.    But  what  is  the  meaning  of  such  entries  as  these  ? — 

*'  Five  pounds  on  the  certificate  of  Thomas  Stanley." — 
(This  was  in  the  year  1657,  the  year  the  severe  lav/s  were 
not  enforced !) — "To  Thomas  Gregson,  Evan  Powell,  and 


104  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IH  IRELAND. 

Samuel  Alley,  being  three  soldiers  in  Colonel  Abbott's  horse 
dragoons, — for  arresting  a  Popish  priest  by  the  name  of 
Donongh  Hagerty,  taken  and  now  secured  in  the  county 
jail  at  Clonmel ;  and  the  money"  (it  says)  "  is  to  be  equally 
divided  between  them  !  " 

"  To  Arthur  SpoUen,  Robert  Pierce,  and  John  Bruen, 
five  pounds,  to  be  divided  equally  between  them,  for  their 
good  service  performed  in  apprehending  and  bringing  before 
the  Right  Honorable  Lord  Chief  Justice  Pepys,  on  the  21st 
of  January,  one  Popish  priest  named  Edwin  Duhy." 

"  To  Lieutenant  Edmn  Wood,  on  the  certificate  of  Wm. 
St.  George,  Esq.,  Justice  of  the  Peace  of  the  county  of 
Cavan,  twenty-nve  pounds,  for  five  priests  and  friars  appre- 
hended by  him,  namely,  Thomas  McGeoghegan,  Turlough 
McGowan,  Hugh  McGowan,  Terence  Fitzsimmons,  and 
another,  who,  on  examination,  confessed  themselves  to  be 
priests  and  friars." 

"  To  Sergeant  Humphrey  Gibbs,"  (a  nice  na]ne,)  "and  to 
Corporal  Thomas  Hill,  of  Colonel  Lee's  company,  ten 
pounds,  for  apprehending  two  Popish  priests ;  namely,  Mau- 
rice Prendergast  and  Edward  Eahy,  v/ho  were  sentenced  to 
the  jail  of  Wexford,  and,  afterwards,  being  adj udged  accord- 
ingly, were  transported  to  foreign  parts." 

The  third  "  beast  "  was  the  "  Tory,"  which  means,  that, 
in  these  terrible  years,  seves.'al  of  the  Irish  gentlemen,  and 
Irish  people,  who  were  ordered  to  transplant  themselves 
into  Connaught,  not  finding  there  the  means  of  living,  re- 
mained in  the  desolate  countries  of  Leinster  and  Munster ; 
and  there,  goaded  to  desperation,  formed  themselves  into 
wild  bands  of  outlaws,  robbing  the  cattle  of  the  Cromwellian 
settlers  ;  descending  upon  them,  with  fire  and  sword ;  achiev- 
ing, in  their  own  vray,  "  the  wild  justice  of  revenge."  If 
Ireland  was  the  "  garden  "  that  Mr.  Froude  describes  it  to 
be,  how  comes  it  to  pass  that  no  Cromwellian  settler, 
throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land,  dared  to 
take  a  piece  of  land  unless  there  was  a  garrison  of  soldiers 
within  his  immediate  neighborhood  ?     Nay,  even  under  the 


THE  CROMWELLIAJSf  ERA.  105 

very  eyes  of  the  garrison  of  Timolin,  in  Meath,  the  "  Tories  " 
came  down,  and  robbed,  plundered,  set  fire  to,  and  destroyed 
fcbe  homesteads  of  certain  English  Cromwellian  settlers  ;  for 
which  all  the  people  of  the  neighborhood,  of  Irish  names 
and  of  Irish  parentage,  were  at  once  taken  and  banished  out  of 
the  country.  In  a  word,  the  outlaws  who,  thirty  years  af- 
terward, appeared  as  "  Rapparees," — who  are  described  to 
us  in  such  fearful  terms,  by  the  English  historians, —  con- 
tinued to  infest  and  desolate  the  country ;  and  we  find  ac- 
counts of  them  in  the  State  papers,  and  other  papers,  down 
to  the  latter  end  of  the  reign  of  George  III.  And  this  was 
the  "garden"!  This  was  the  land  of  peace,  of  comfort, 
and  of  plenty ! 

Now,  my  friends,  came  the  Restoration.  In  1659,  Charles 
IL  was  restored  to  the  throne  of  England.  Well,  the  Irish 
had  been  fighting  for  his  father  ;  they  had  bled,  and  suftered, 
fighting  against  his  enemies  ;  and  they  were  now  banished 
into  Connaught.  They  naturally  expected  that,  when  the 
rightful  heir  to  the  throne  would  come  into  his  rights,  they 
would  be  recalled  and  put  into  their  estates.  They  might 
have  expected  more.  They  might  have  expected  to  be  re- 
warded by  honors,  titles,  and  wealth.  But  what  is  the  fact  ? 
The  fact  is  that  Charles  II.,  at  the  Restoration,  left  nearly 
the  whole  of  Ireland  in  the  hands  of  the  Cromwellian  set- 
tlers ;  and,  by  the  "  Act  of  Settlement  and  Explanation," 
secured  them  in  these  estates,  leaving  the  property  and  the 
wealth  of  the  country  to  the  men  who  had  brought  his 
father  to  the  scafiold ;  and  leaving  in  beggary,  destitution, 
and  ruin,  the  biave  and  loyal  men  who  had  fought  for  him 
and  his  house.  At  first,  indeed,  there  was  a  "  Court  of 
Claims  "  opened ;  for,  remember,  that,  in  England,  no  sooner 
had  Charles  come  to  the  throne,  than  all  the  Cromwellian 
settlers  who  had  taken  the  property  of  the  English  Royal- 
ists were  at  once  put  out,  and  the  English  lords  and  gentle- 


lOG  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IBELAND. 

men  got  back  their  jiroperties  and  estates.  But  not  so  in 
Ireland.  The  "  Court  of  Claims  "  was  opened  in  the  first 
year  of  the  reign  of  Charles.  As  soon  as  it  -was  perceived 
that  the  Irish  Catholics  began  to  claim  their  property,  the 
Government  shut  up  the  Court  at  once.  Three  thousand 
of  these  claims  remained  unheard.     As  Leland  says : — 

"  The  people  of  Ireland  were  denied  the  justice  which  is 
given  to  the  commonest  criminal — the  justice  of  having  a 
fair  and  impartial  hearing." 

Nugent,  afterwards  Lord  Riverston,  writes  at  this  time  : — 

"There  are  in  Ireland  to-day,  five  thousand  men  whc 
never  were  outlawed,  who  yet  have  been  put  out  of  theii 
estates ;  and  now  by  law  they  never  can  recover  their  es- 
tates again." 

More  than  this.  No  sooner  was  Charles  seated  on  the 
throne,  than  the  English  and  Irish  Parliaments  began  to 
afflict  and  grind  the  already  down-trodden  people  of  Ireland 
by  legislation  the  most  infamous  that  can  be  imagined.  In 
1G73,  the  English  Parliament  furiously  demanded  that  the 
King  should  exj)el  all  the  Catholic  Bishops  and  priests  from 
Ireland,  and  prohibit  the  Papists  from  dwelling  there  with- 
out a  license.  In  order  to  encourage  the  Protestant 
*'  planters,"  Charles, — against  his  conscience,  and  against 
his  royal  gratitude, — obeyed  them.  Law  after  law  was 
passed  in  that  and  the  succeeding  years,  abolisliing  and  de- 
stroying, as  far  as  they  could,  every  vestige  of  the  Catholic 
religion  in  Ireland.  Mr.  Froude  here  again  makes  the  cus- 
tomary assertion,  that,  "  when  the  Eestoration  came,  the 
Catholic  religion  and  the  Catholic  priests  came  back  with 
it."  He  tells  us  that  the  Catholic  Archbishop  of  Dublin 
"  was  received  in  state  at  the  Castle."  What  are  the  facts  ? 
The  Primate,  Edmund  O'Eeilly,  was  banished.  Peter 
Talbot,  the   Archbishop   of  Dublin, — although,  being  in  a 


THE  CnOMWELLIAJS'  ERA.  107 

dying  state,  lie  had  got  lea^-e,  but  a  short  time  before,  to  re- 
turn to  Ireland,  that  he  might  die  in  the  land  of  his  birth, 
— was  arrested  in  Maynooth,  near  Dublin,  and  shut  up  in  a 
dungeon  ;  and  there  he  died  a  miserable  death  of  martyr- 
dom. ^Q  find,  at  this  very  time,  a  reward  of  ten  pounds 
offered  for  any  one  who  should  discover  an  ofiicer  of  the 
army  attending  at  Mass ;  five  pounds  for  a  trooper  ;  and 
four  shillings  for  any  private  soldier,  who  was  discovered  to 
have  heard  Mass.  Oliver  Plunkett,  the  holy  Primate  of 
Armagh,  was  seized  by  Lord  Ormonde,  in  1679.  The}' 
knew  that  they  could  not  convict  him  of  any  lawlessness  oi 
treason  in  Ireland  ;  and  they  brought  him  over  to  London, 
packed  an  English  jury  to  try  him;  and  they  murdered 
him  at  Tyburn,  in  this  j^ear. 

It  is  true  that  these  penal  laws  were  relaxed  for  some  years 
before  the  death  of  Charles  II.  That  event  took  place  in 
1G85  ;  and  James  TL  came  to  the  throne.  Three  years  after- 
wards, William  of  Orange  landed  to  dispute  with  him  the  title 
to  the  crown  of  England.  Now,  that  James  II.  was  the  lawful 
King  of  England,  no  man  will  deny.  William  was  married 
to  Mary,  the  daugliter  of  James ;  and  William  came  to 
England  with  an  army  of  15,000  men  at  his  back,  pretending 
that  he  came  only  to  inquire  about  the  birth  of  the  Prince 
of  Wales,  who  was  the  lawful  heir  to  the  crown.  Well, 
James,  as  soon  as  William  arrived  with  his  army,  fled  to 
France.  Mr,  Froude  tells  us  that  he  abdicated  vvhen  he  fled 
to  Prance.  I  deny  that  James  II.  abdicated.  Mr.  Froude 
has  no  authority  to  say  it.  He  only  retii-ed,  for  a  time, 
from  the  face  of  his  enemy.  He  called  upon  his  subjects, 
both  in  England  and  Ireland,  to  stand  to  their  King  like 
\0j2l  men.  The  English  betrayed  him ;  the  Irish, — fools  as 
they  were, — rose  up  again  for  a  Stuart  King,  and  declared 
they  were  loyal  men,  and  they  would  stand  by  their  mon- 
arch. 


108  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

James  came  to  Ireland  iii  1G89  ;  and  he  summoned  a  Par- 
liament, of  which  Mr.  Froude  speaks  in  his  lecture.  lie 
speaks  of  that  Parliament  as  a  persecuting  Parliament.  He 
says  that  "  they  attainted  every  single  Protestant  proprietor 
in  Ireland,  by  name  ;  "  and  that  they  did  this,  "  lest  any  ciio 
should  escape  out  of  their  net."  Isow,  what  are  the  facts  of 
that  Parliament  of  1689  ?  The  very  first  thing  that  they 
declared,  although  they  had  suffered  more  than  any  other 
people  from  religious  persecution, — the  very  first  law  they 
made  was  that  there  should  be  no  more  religious  persecution 
in  Ireland,  and  that  no  man,  from  that  day  forward,  should 
suffer  for  his  conscience  or  his  faith.  It  is  perfectly  true 
that  they  passed  a  bill  of  attainder ;  but  they  passed  that 
bill  not  against  Protestants  but  against  every  man  of  the 
land  that  was  in  arms  against  King  James,  whom  they  rec- 
ognized as  their  king  ; — every  man  who  refused  to  obey  him 
and  his  government.  I  ask  you,  in  doing  that,  did  they  not 
do  their  duty  ?  Did  they  not  do  precisely  what  is  always 
done  in  times  of  rebellion  ?  England  was  in  rebellion  against 
James.  James  was  the  lawful  king.  James  was  in  Ireland  ; 
and  the  Irish  Parliament,  with  James  at  their  head,  declared 
that  every  man  who  was  in  arms  against  him  was  to  be  out- 
laAved.  Against  these  outlaws  the  Bill  of  Attainder  was 
passed, — this  "  persecuting  measure  "  of  which  Mr.  Froude 
speaks  when  he  mentions  this  Parliament. 

William  came  to  Ireland,  and  opened  the  campaign  in. 
1690.  Mr.  Froude  says,  in  his  description  of  him,  that 
William  brought  with  him  only  a  small  army,  badly 
equipped,  badly  drilled ;  but  that  the  Irish  were  never  so 
strong,  never  so  well  drilled,  or  so  perfectly  equipj^ed  as  they 
were  at  the  time.  Now  here  are  the  numbers  as  given  by 
history  : — William's  army  consisted,  at  first,  of  46,000  vet- 
eran soldiers,  v/ell  clad,  well  fed,  and  perfectly  drilled  and 
equipped.     The  Irish  army  of  James  numbered  23,000  im- 


TEE  CBOMWELLIAN  ERA.  109 

perfectly  disciplined  troops,  wanting  in  nearly  everything 
necessary  for  a  campaign*.  "  Thig  we  have  on  the  evidence  of 
the  Duke  of  Berwick,  who  vv^as  serving  in  the  army  at  the 
time.  At  the  battle  of  the  Boyne,  Mr.  Froude  says  tha*" 
"  the  Irish  did  not  make  even  a  respectable  stand  "  !  And 
I  regret, — I  bitterly  regTet, — that  the  learned  gentleman 
should,  himself,  have  so  far  forgotten  what  was  due  to  him- 
self, as  to  have  ventured,  even  in  the  faintest  whisper,  to 
impute  a  want  of  courage  to  the  soldiers  of  Ireland.  At  the 
battle  of  the  Boyne,  James  and  his  army  were  on  the  south 
bank  of  the  river.  William  with  his  army  advanced  down 
from  the  north.  The  muster  roll  of  William's  army,  on  that 
morning,  shows  the  figure  of  51,000  men.  The  army  of 
James  had  not  increased  from  the  original  23,000.  William 
was  a  lion-hearted  and  brave  soldier.  James,  I  am  sorry  to 
say,  had  forgotten  the  tradition  of  that  ancient  courage  and 
gallantry  which  belonged  to  him  as  Duke  of  York,  when  he 
was  Lord  High  Admiral  of  England.  On  one  side  was  "  an 
army  led  by  a  lion  ; "  on  the  other  was  "  an  army  led  by  a 
stag."  The  Irish  have  fixed  upon  James  an  opprobrious 
name,  in  the  Irish  language,  which  on  an  occasion  like  this 
I  will  not  repeat. 

On  the  morning  of  the  battle  of  the  Boyne,  William  de- 
tached 10,000  men,  who  went  up  the  stream  some  miles,  to 
ford  it  near  the  Hill  of  Slane.  James  could  scarcely  be  pre- 
vailed upon  to  send  one  or  two  regiments  of  horse  to  oppose 
these  10,000  men,  with  their  artillery,  headed  by  the  Duke 
of  Schomberg.  The  evening  before  the  battle,  James  sent 
away  six  guns  towards  Dublin.  How  many  do  you  think 
remained  ?  Only  six  pieces  of  artillery  remained  with  the 
Irish  on  that  day!  How  many  were  opposed  to  them? 
We  have  it  on  historic  record,  that  William  brought  into 
the  field  on  that  day  at  the  Boyne,  fifty  heavy  pieces  of  ar- 
tillery and  four  mortars.     Then  he  advanced  and  crossed 


110  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

the  river.  These  Irish  troops,  of  whom  Mr.  Fronde  says 
that  "  they  did  not  make  even  a  respectable  stand,"  were 
ontgeneralled  that  day.  They  had  at  their  head  a  timorous 
king, — !a  king  who  had  already  sent  away  his  artillery  and 
his  baggage ;  who  had  drawn  around  his  person,  two  miles 
away,  all  the  best  disciplined  of  the  French  soldiers;  and 
these  raw  levies  of  young  Irishmen  v/ere  opposed  to  51,000 
of  the  bravest  men  of  Europe.  Well,  William  crossed  the 
Boyne,  and  the  Duke  of  Berwick  is  my  authority  for  stating 
this.     He  says: — 

"  With  admirable  courage  and  gallantry,  the  Irish  troops 
charged  the  English  ten  times  after  they  had  crossed  the 
river." 

Ten  times  did  these  poor  young  fellows,  with  no  General, 
and  scarcely  an  officer,  charge  upon  the  English' with  a  dash 
as  brave  as  that  with  which  O'Brien,  Lord  Clare,  swept 
down  upon  them  at  Fontenoy.  Ten  distinct  times  did  they 
dash  against  the  terrible  lines  of  William's  veterans.  And 
when  they  retreated,  they  retreated  like  an  army,  in  perfect 
order,  at  the  command  of  their  superior  officers. 

Now  came  the  siege  of  Athlone.  In  that  same  year,  1690, 
the  English  army  advanced,  on  the  line  of  the  Shannon, 
against  Athlone.  And  here,  Mr.  Fronde  says,  that,  "  At 
Athlone  the  Irish  deserted  posts  which  they  easily  might 
have  made  impregnable."  Now,  what  are  the  facts  ?  The 
town  of  Athlone  stands  on  the  river  Shannon,  partly  on  one 
bank  and  partly  on  the  other,  connected  by  a  stone  bridge. 
The  portion  of  the  town  that  is  on  the  Leinster  side  is 
called  the  "  English  town ;  "  that  upon  the  Connaught  side 
is  called  the  "  Irish  town."  When  the  English  army  ad- 
vanced against  the  town  of  Athlone,  in  the  first  siege.  Col- 
onel Richard  Grace,  who  held  the  town,  beat  back  tlie  ]i]ng- 
lish, — many  times, — aye,  eight  times  more  than  his  number, 
• — with  so  much  bravery,  that  the  whole  army  of  England 


THE  CROMWELLIAN  ERA.  m 

was  obliged  to  retire  from  before  Atlilone,  and  give  up  tlie 
siege. 

Then,  William  advanced  upon  Limerick.  He  brought 
with  him  the  whole  strength  of  his  army.  He  had,  when 
he  went  to  Limerick,  20,000  men  in  regular  line  of  battle. 
In  the  town  of  Limerick  there  v/as  an  army  of  James's  made 
up  partly  of  Irish,  under  the  immortal  Sarsfield,  and  partly 
of  French,  under  a  General  named  Lazun.  When  the  great 
Englisli  army,  with  its  King,  was  approaching  the  city,  the 
French  General,  seeing  it  so  defenceless,  actually  left  the 
town  with  his  troops,  swearing  that  "  the  town  could  be  tak- 
en with  roasted  aj^ples."  Sarsfield,  with  the  Irish,  remained. 
W^illiam  advanced  before  the  town  and  battered  it  with  his 
cannon,  until  he  made  a  breach  thirty-six  feet  wide  ;  and  then 
he  assaulted  it  with  12,000  of  his  picked  men.  They  actu- 
ally entered  the  town,  and  were  beaten  out  of  the  walls  of 
Limerick  ; — beaten  back  over  the  broken  interior  walls, — 
beaten  so  that,  whilst  even  the  women  of  Limerick  entered 
into  the  contest,  fighting  side  by  side  with  the  men, — after 
three  hours  and  a  half  of  fighting,  William,  Prince  of  Orange, 
withdrew  from  the  assault,  leaving  2,000  men  and  155  officers 
in  the  breach  of  Limerick.  The  next  day  King  William 
sent  a  message  to  the  city,  asking  them  for  leave  to  bury  his 
dead ;  and  the  answer  he  got  was  :  "  Begone  !  we  will  give 
you  no  leave.  Take  yourself  away  ;  and  we  will  bury  your 
dead  !  " 

In  the  second  siege  of  Athlone,  in  the  following  year,  the 
English  town  was  occupied  by  Colonel  Fitzgerald.  General 
St.  Ruth,  with  the  Irish  army,  lay  two  miles  away,  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Shannon.  The  English  to^\"n  was  assailed 
by  William's  General,  Ginckle,  with  8,000  men  against  the 
400  who  defended  it.  Fitzgerald  and  his  Irish  troops  re- 
mained, and  stoi3ped  the  v/hole  English  army,  and  fought 
Tuitil,  out  of  the  400  men,  not  200  were  left,  before  they 


112  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

crossed  tlie  bridge  and  gave  up  tliat  portion  of  the  town^ 
Before  they  crossed  the  bridge  they  broke  one  of  the  arches ; 
and  then  crossing  over  they  joined  the  garrison  in  the  Irish 
town.  The  English  army  with  all  their  artillery  battered  the 
Irish  town  until  they  did  not  leave  a  house  standing  there, 
or  a  stone  upon  a  stone.  Before  they  forced  the  Irish  troops 
to  retire,  the  English  attempted  to  plank  over  the  broken 
arch  of  the  bridge.  They  had  their  guns  ranged  to  sweep  it. 
Eleven  Irish  soldiers  came  out  to  tear  up  the  planks,  and 
cast  them  into  the  river;  and  such  was  the  sweeping  fire  of 
the  English  artillery,  that  out  of  the  eleven,  only  two  of  the 
poor  fellows  survived.  Again  the  Euglish  advanced  to  the 
attack  ;  and  again  eleven  other  Irish  sergeants  of  the  various 
regiments  came  out  in  the  face  of  the  whole  English  army, 
and  in  the  face  of  all  their  artillery,  and  deliberately  de- 
stroyed the  wooden  bridge  they  were  making  over  the  Shan- 
non. And  when  the  town  was  taken,  at  last,  it  was  a  mere 
heap  of  ruins.  It  was  taken  not  through  any  want  of  bra- 
very on  the  part  of  the  Irish  soldiers,  but  through  the  folly 
and  obstinacy  of  the  French  General,  St.  Buth,  who  refused 
to  succor  them  or  stand  by  them. 

Of  Aughrim  I  will  not  speak ;  because  Mr.  Eroude  him- 
self acknowdedges  that,  at  Aughrim,  the  Irish  soldiers  fought 
bravely.  And  because  I  have  for  this  English  gentleman, 
really  and  truly,  a  sincere  regard  and  esteem,  I  would  ask 
him  to  do  what  I  myself  would  do  if  I  were  in  his  position : 
I  would  ask  him  to  reconsider  the  word  by  which  he  seems 
to  imply  a  taint  of  cowardice  on  Irishmen,  at  home  and 
abroad,  and,  in  the  name  of  God,  to  take  that  word  back. 

In  1G91,  the  second  siege  of  Limerick  began ;  and  so  gal- 
lant was  the  resistance,  so  brave  the  defence,  that  William 
of  Orange,  who  was  a  brave  man, — and  if  left  to  himself 
would  have  been  a  tolerant  and  mild  man, — offered  terms. 
He  bore  no  ill-will  to  the  Irish,  because  he  was  a  stranger  to 


THE  CROMWELLIAN  EUA.  113 

them,  and  only  came  to  Ireland  simjoly  as  a  warrior  in  tLe 
service  of  v/ar  ;  he  saw  in  the  Irish  a  high-spirited  and  brave 
people ;  and  he  was  obliged  to  come  to  terms.  In  the  arti- 
cles of  capitulation  signed  for  tlie  Irish,  they  received  hon- 
orable terms  from  the  royalty  of  England.  By  those  very 
articles,  their  rights,  as  citizens  and  as  Catholics,  to  every 
liberty  of  conscience  and  of  religion  were  recognized. 
Scarcely  was  the  treaty  of  Limerick  signed  by  the  Lords 
Justices,  than  a  French  ileet  entered  the  Shannon, — a  French 
fleet  of  eighteen  ships  of  the  line,  with  tv/enty  transports, 
bringing  3,000  men,  200  officers,  and  above  all,  10,000  stand 
of  arms,  with  clothing  and  provisions.  They  came ;  but 
they  came  too  late  for  Sarsfield  and  for  Ireland.  Sarsfieid 
had  surrendered.  He  might  have  taken  back  that  word  ;  he 
might  have  broken  these  articles,  when  he  found  the  French 
forces  and  fleet  at  his  back.  But  Sarsfield,  to  his  glory,  was 
an  Irishman ; — and  he  was  far  too  honorable  a  man  to  vio- 
late the  treaty  of  Limerick  which  he  had  signed  with  his 
honorable  hand.  Would  to  God  that  the  honor  of  Sarsfield 
had  also  been  in  the  hearts  of  the  other  men,  who,  on  the 
part  of  England,  ^signed  that  treaty  !  But,  no  !  The  Lords 
Justices  went  back  to  Dublin,  with  the  treaty  signed,  with 
the  honor  of  the  royalty  of  England  committed  to  it ;  and 
the  next  Sunday  after  they  arrived  in  Dublin,  they  went 
to  Christ  Church  Cathedral  to  perform  their  devotions ; 
and  the  sermon  was  preached  by  a  Dr.  Dop})ing,  the  liOrd 
Bishop  of  Meath.  Nov/,  I  am  more  or  less  a  professional 
preacher, — not  so  much  a  lecturer  as  a  preacher, — and  I 
have  a  certain  feeling  of  esjn-it  du  corps — I  have  the  feeling 
for  preachers  that  every  man  has  for  his  own  profession.  I 
like  to  see  them  uphold  the  honor  of  their  profession. — 
Wliat  do  you  think  v/as  the  sermon  that  Dr.  Dopping 
preached.  He  preached, — I  regret  to  say  and  I  am  ashamed 
to  say  (it  is  true  he  was  a  Protestant  Bishop) — but  still  he 


114  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

preached  on  the  sin  and  the  sinfulness  of  keeping  your  oath 
or  faith  with  a  Papist. 

Immediately  after  the  articles  of  Limerick  were  signed", — 
we  liMve  the  testimony  of  Harris,  the  historian  of  William 
the  Third.     He  says : 

"Justices  of  the  Peace,  and  Sheriffs,  and  other  Magis- 
trates, presuming  on  their  power  in  the  country,  did,  in  an 
illegal  manner,  dispossess  several  of  their  Majesties'  subjects 
not  only  of  their  very  goods  and  chattels,  but  of  their  lands 
and  tenements,  to  the  great  disturbance  of  the  peace,  the 
subversion  of  the  law,  and  the  reproach  of  their  Majesties' 
Government." 

We  find  those  Lords  Justices  themselves,  in  a  letter  of  the 
19th  November,  six  weeks  after  the  treaty  was  signed, — 
complaining  that  their  lordships  had  received  complaints 
from  all  parts  of  Ireland  of  the  ill-treatment  of  the  people 
who  had  submitted  to  their  INIajesties'  protection,  ^nd  were 
included  in  the  articles  of  that  treaty.  And  the  consequence 
was  that,  actually,  the  men  who  refused  to  embark  with 
Sarsfield,  to  go  to  Spain  and  France,  came  in  thousands  to 
beg  of  the  English  Lords  Justices  to  give  them  leave,  to  let 
them  go  and  join  Sarsfield  in  exile, — to  let  them  go  to  fight 
the  battles  of  France,  Spain,  and  Austria, — because  thei-e 
was  no  room  in  Ireland  for  a  Catholic  and  an  Irishman,  nor 
even  for  an  honest  man. 

JSToY*^  began  a  time  the  most  lamentable  for  Ireland.  Wil- 
liam himself  was  anxious  to  keep  his  royal  word,  and  would 
have  kept  it,  if  they  had  allowed  him.  But  the  same  pres- 
sure was  put  upon  him  as  was  brought  to  bear  on  Charles  I. 
The  Irish  Protestant  faction  would  not  allow  a  Catholic  to 
live  in  the  land.  Tiie  English  Parliament  would  not  allow 
a  Catholic  to  breathe  in  the  land.  William  was  coerced  to 
comply  with  their  requests ;  and  a  series  of  the  most  terri- 
ble laws  that  can  be  imagined  were  passed  in  the  very  teeth 


THE  CROMWELLIAN  ERA.  115 

of  the  articles  that  were  signed  at  Limerick.  Three  years 
after  the  siege  of  Limerick,  the  two  Parliaments  were  urged 
by  the  grievances  of  the  Protestants  of  Ireland.  The  poor 
fellows  complained  "that  the  Catholics  would  not  give  them 
leave  to  live  "  !  They  poured  in  their  petitions  to  the  House 
of  Commons.  We  find  a  petition  from  the  Protestant  Mayor 
and  Aldermen  of  Limerick,  complaining,  in  their  o^n  words, 
that  they  were  "  greatly  damaged  in  their  trade  by  the  great 
number  of  Paj^ists  residing  there ; "  and  praying  to  be  re- 
lieved of  them.  We  find  the  "  coal-porters  "  of  Dublin  send- 
ing in  a  petition  to  Parliament,  and  it  was  as  follows : — 
"  Petition  of  one  Edward  Spragg "  (another  nice  name) 
"  and  others,  in  behalf  of  themselves  and  other  Protestant 
porters,  in  and  about  the  city  of  Dublin," — comj^laining  that 
one  Darby  Pyan,  a  Papist,  actually  employed  porters  of  his 
own  religion.  And  the  petition  was  entertained  by  the  Irish 
House  of  Commons,  and  was  sent  to  the  "  Committee  on 
Grievances."  Listen  to  the  words  and  description  by  the 
historian,  John  Mitchel,  of  this  time  : — 

"  The  Parliament  met,  and  they  passed  an  Act  for  the  bet- 
ter securing  of  the  Government  against  the  Papists;  and  the 
fii'st  act  of  that  Parliament  was  that  no  CathoJic  in  Ireland 
was  to  be  allowed  to  have  a  gun,  pistol,  or  svord,  or  any 
kind  of  weapon  of  offence  or  defence.  The  consequence  of 
disobeying  this  law  was  fine  and  imprisonment,  at  the  dis- 
cretion of  the  court,  or  else  the  pillory  or  whipping." 

Kow  here  are  the  reflections  of  Mr.  Mitchel : — 

"  It  is  impossible  to  describe  the  minute  and  curious  tyr- 
anny to  which  this  statute  gave  rise  in  every  j^arish  of  the 
island  ;  especially  in  districts  where  there  was  an  armed  Yeo- 
raanry,  exclusively  Protestant.  It  fired  ill  with  any  Catholic 
who,  for  any  reason,  fell  under  the  displeasure  of  his  formida- 
ble neighbors.  Any  pretext  was  sufficient  to  point  him  out 
for  suspicion.  Any  neighboring  magistrate  might  visit  him, 
at  any  hour  of  the  night,  and  search  his  bed  for  arms.     iSTo 


116  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

Papist  vras  safe  from  suspicion  who  had  any  money  1o  pay 
in  lines ;  and  woe  to  the  Papist  who  had  a  handsome  daugh- 
ter!" 

The  second  act  that  they  passed  was  designed  to  brutalize 
the  Irish  Catholic  people,  by  ignorance.  They  made  a  law 
that  no  Catholic  was  to  teach ;  no  Catholic  was  to  send  his 
son  to  a  Catholic  school,  or  to  a  Catholic  teacher.  No  Cath- 
olic child  was  to  be  sent  out  of  Ireland  to  receive  a  Catholic 
education  elsewhere  ;  and  if  any  parent  or  guardian  were  found 
sending  money,  clothing,  or  anything  else  to  a  Catholic  child, 
in  a  Catholic  school,  there  was  forfeiture,  imprisonment,  or  a 
fine ;  and  for  a  second  offence  he  was  treated  as  guilty  of  high 
treason  and  was  liable  to  be  put  to  death  for  doing  it. 

The  third  act  they  passed  was : — 

"  That  all  Popish  Archbishops,  Bishops,  Vicars-General, 
Deans,  Jesuits,  Monks,  Friars,  and  all  other  regular  Popish 
clergy,  and  all  Papists  exercising  any  ecclesiastical  jurisdic- 
tion,— shall  depart  out  of  this  Kingdom  before  the  1st  day 
of  May,  1698." 

If  any  remained  after  that  day,  or  returned,  the  delinquents 
were  to  be  transported  ;  and  if  they  returned  again,  they  were 
to  be  guilty  of  high  treason,  and  to  suffer  accordingly ; — that 
is  to  say — to  be  hanged^  drawn,  and  quartered. 

You  would  imagine  now,  at  least,  that  the  Papists  were 
down  as  far  as  they  could  be  put  down.  You  would  imagine, 
now,  at  least,  that  the  Protestant  religion  was  safe  in  Ire- 
land. Ah  !  no,  my  friends.  William  was  succeeded  by  his 
sister-in-law.  Queen  Anne.  She  was  a  Stuart;  she  was  a 
daughter  of  James  II.,  for  whom  Ireland  shed  its  blood ;  she 
•  was  a  granddaughter  of  Charles  I.,  for  whom  Ireland  shed 
its  blood  ;  and  one  would  imagine  she  would  have  some  heart, 
some  feeling  for  that  people.  Here  is  the  way  she  showed 
it.  A  Parliament,  under  this  good  Queen,  passed  a  law  "  to 
prevent  the  growth  of  Popery  "  !     What  a  strange  plant  this 


THE  CROMWELLIAN  EBA.  II7 

Popery  must  be !  They  had  been  chopping  it  up,  and  cutting 
it  down,  trampling  it  under  foot,  blowing  it  up  with  gun 
powder,  digging  it  out  by  the  roots,  as  if  they  thought  that 
would  extirpate  it ;  and  yet,  year  after  year,  Parliament  said  : 
"  We  must  stop  the  growth  of  Popery,"  and  passed  laws  to 
stop  the  growth  of  Popery,  By  the  first  act  of  this  Parlia- 
ment of  good  Queen  Anne,  it  was  enacted  that,  if  the  son  ol 
any  Papist  should  ever  become  Protestant,  his  father  might 
not  sell  or  mortgage  his  estate,  or  dispose  of  it,  or  any  portion 
of  it,  by  sale ;  for  the  Protestant  son  became  master  of  his 
father's  estate.  Or  if  any  child,  no  matter  how  young,  con- 
formed to  the  Protestant  religion,  he  reduced  his  father  at 
once  to  be  a  tenant  for  life;  and  the  child  was  to  be  taken 
from  the  father,  and  placed  under  the  guardianship  of  some 
Protestant  relative.  This  clause  of  this  act,  according  to  law, 
made  a  Papist  incapable  of  purchasing  any  landed  estates, 
or  collecting  rents  or  profits  arising  out  of  the  land,  or  hold- 
ing any  lease  for  life,  or  for  any  term  exceeding  thirty-one 
years,  unless  in  such  lease  the  reserve  rent  were  at  least  one 
thii'd  of  the  improved  rent  value.  That  is  to  say,  that  if 
a  Protestant  discovered  that  a  Catholic  had  improved  his 
land,  so  as  to  make  it  one-thii'd  more  in  value,  the  Protestant 
could  seize  the  money,  could  seize  the  land,  could  get  a  re- 
ward for  betraying  his  neighbor  to  the  Government. 

Finally,  they  capped  the  climax  by  passing  a  law  that  no 
Papist  or  Catholic  was  to  have  a  horse  worth  more  than  five 
pounds.  If  he  had  one  worth  five  thousand  pounds,  and  a 
Protestant  came  up  to  ofier  him  five  pounds  for  the  horse ; 
— whether  he  took  it  or  not,  the  Protestant  was  at  liberty  to 
seize  the  Catholic's  property.  In  a  word,  every  enactment 
that  could  degrade,  vilify,  or  annihilate  the  people,  was  the 
order  of  the  day,  and  the  business  of  Parliament,  from  the 
days  of  Elizabeth  down  to  the  days  when  America  burst  her 


118  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IBELAND. 

c^fiains,  and  before  her  terrible  presence  England  grew  afraitl, 
and  began  to  relax  her  penal  laws. 

I  feel,  my  friends,  that  I  have  detained  you  too  long  upon 
a  subject  which,  indeed,  was  dreary  and  desolate  ground  to 
travel  over.  For  my  pai-t,  I  never  would  have  invited  the 
citizens  of  America,  or  my  fellow-countrymen,  to  enter  upon 
such  a  desolate  waste,  to  renew,  in  my  heart  and  yours,  so 
deep  and  terrible  a  sorrow,  if  Mr.  Froude  had  not  compelled 
m.e  to  lift  the  veil,  and  to  show  you  the  treatment  which  our 
fathers  received  at  the  hands  of  England.  I  do  it  not  at  all 
to  excite  national  animosity,  not  at  all  to  stir  up  bad  blood. 
I  am  one  of  the  first  willing  to  say,  "  Let  by-gones  be  by- 
gones ;  let  the  dead  past  bury  its  dead."  But,  if  any  man, — 
I  care  not  who  he  be,  how  great  his  reputation,  how  grand 
his  name,  in  any  walk  of  learning,  or  of  science,  or  history ; — 
if  any  man  dare  to  say  that  England's  treatment  of  Ireland 
was  just, — Avas  necessary, — was  such  as  can  receive  the  ver- 
dict of  an  honest  man  or  of  an  honest  people ; — if  any  man 
dare  to  say  that,  either  at  home  or  abi'oad,  the  Irish  have 
ever  shown  the  white  feather  in  the  hour  of  danger, — if  I  were 
on  my  death-bed  I  would  rise  up  to  contradict  him. 


FOUKTH  LECTUEE. 

{Delwei'ed  in  the  Academy  of  Music^  New  YorJc^  Nov.  21,  1872.) 

IRELAND    AND    AMERICA. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen:  I  perceive,  from  tlie  public 
papers,  that  Mr.  Froude  seems  to  be  somewhat  irritated  by 
remarks  that  have  been  made  as  to  his  accuracy  as  a  histo- 
rian. Lest  any  word  of  mine  might  hurt,  in  the  least  de- 
gree, the  just  susceptibilities  of  an  honorable  man,  I  beg, 
beforehand,  to  say  that  nothing  was  further  from  my 
thoughts  than  the  slightest  word  either  of  personality  or 
disrespect  for  one  who  has  won  for  himself  so  higli  a  name 
as  the  English  historian.  And,  therefore,  I  sincerely  hope 
that  it  is  not  any  word  of  mine, — which  may  have  fallen 
from  me,  even  in  the  heat  of  our  amicable  controversy, — 
that  can  have  given  the  least  offence  to  that  gentleman. 
Just  as  I  would  expect  to  receive  from  him,  or  from  any 
other  learned  and  educated  man,  the  treatment  which  one 
gentleman  is  supposed  to  show  to  another,  so  do  I  also  wish 
to  give  him  that  treatment. 

And  now,  my  friends,  we  come  to  the  matter  in  hand. 
On  the  last  occasion,  I  had  to  traverse  a  great  portion  of  my 
country's  history  in  reviewing  the  statements  of  the  English 
historian  ;  and  I  was  obliged  to  leave  almost  untouched  one 
portion  of  that  sad  story ;  namely,  the  period  which  covers 
the  reign  of  Queen  Anne.  This  estimable  lady,  of  whom 
history  records  the  unwomanly  vice  of  an  overfondness  for 
eating — came    to   the   English   throne,    on   the   demise   of 


120  BJ'iGLISir  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

William  of  Orange,  in  1702;  and  on  that  throne  she  sat 
until  1714.  As  I  before  remarked,  it  was,  perhaps,  natural 
tha-t  the  Irish  people, — the  Catholics  of  Ireland,— trodden 
into  the  very  dust, — should  have  expected  some  quarter 
from  the  daughter  of  the  man  for  whom  they  had  shed  their 
blood,  and  from  the  granddaughter  of  the  other  Stuart 
King  for  whom  they  had  fought  with  so  much  bravery  in^ 
1G49.  The  return  that  the  Irish  people  got  from  this  good 
lady  was  quite  of  another  kind  from  what  they  might  have 
expected.  Not  content  with  the  atrocious  laws  that  had 
been  already  enacted  against  the  Catholics  of  Ireland ;  not 
content  with  the  flagrant  breach  of  the  Articles  of  Limerick, 
of  which  her  royal  brother-in-law,  William,  was  guilty ; — 
no  sooner  does  Anne  come  to  the  throne,  and  send  the  Mar- 
quis of  Ormonde,  as  Lord  Lieutenant,  to  Ireland,  than  the 
Irish  Ascendancy, — that  is  to  say  the  Protestant  faction  in 
Ireland, — got  upon  their  knees  to  the  new  Lord  Lieutenant 
to  beg  of  him,  for  the  honor  of  the  Lord,  to  save  them  from 
these  desperate  Catholics  !  Great  God  ! — a  people,  robbed, 
persecuted,  and  slain,  until  only  a  miserable  remnant  of 
them  were  left; — without  a  voice  in  the  nation's  councils; 
— without  a  vote,  even  at  the  humblest  board  that  sat  to 
transact  the  meanest  parochial  business  ; — these  were  the 
men  against  whom  the  strong  Protestant  Ascendancy  of 
Ireland  made  their  complaints,  in  1703.  And  so  well  were 
these  complaints  heard,  my  friends,  that  we  find  edict  after 
edict  coming  out,  declaring  that  no  Papist  should  be  allowed 
to  inherit  or  possess  land,  or  to  buy  land,  or  have  it  even 
■under  a  lease  :  declaring  that  if  a  Catholic  child  wished  to 
become  Protestant,  that  moment  that  child  became  the 
owner  and  the  master  of  his  father's  estate  ;  and  his  father 
remained  only  his  pensioner,  or  a  tenant  for  life  upon  the 
bounty  of  his  apostate  son ;  declaring  that,  if  a  child,  no 
matter  how  young, — even  an  infant, — conformed  and  be- 


IRELAND  AND  AMERICA.  121 

came  Protestant, — that  moment  that  child  was  to  be  re- 
moved from  the  guardianship  and  custody  of  the  father,  and 
was  to  be  handed  over  to  some  Protestant  relation.  Every 
enactment  that  the  misguided  ingenuity  of  the  tyrannical 
mind  of  man  could  suggest  was  adopted  and  put  in  force. 
"  One  might  be  inclined,"  says  Mr.  Mitchel,  "  to  suppose 
that  Popery  had  been  already  sufficiently  discouraged  ;  see- 
ing that  the  Bishops  and  clergy  had  been  banished,  that 
Catholics  were  excluded,  by  law,  from  all  honorable  or  luc- 
rative employments  ;  carefully  disarmed,  and  plundered  of 
almost  every  acre  of  their  ancient  inheritance."  But 
enough  had  not  yet  been  done  to  make  the  Protestant  inter- 
est feel  secure ;  consequently  new  laws  were  enacted,  and 
new  clauses  were  added,  under  this  "  good  Queen  Anne," 
declaring  that  no  Papist  or  Catholic  could  live  in  a  walled 
town,  especially  in  the  towns  of  Limerick  or  Gal  way  ;  that 
no  Catholic  could  even  come  into  the  suburbs  of  these 
towns  ;  they  were  obliged  to  remain  several  miles  outside 
the  town,  as  if  they  were  lepers,  whose  presence  would  con- 
taminate their  sleek  and  pampered  Protestant  fellow-citizens 
of  the  land. 

The  persecution  went  on.  In  1711,  we  find  them  enact- 
ing new  laws ;  and  later  on,  to  the  very  last  day  of  Queen 
Anne's  reign,  we  find  them  enacting  their  laws,  hounding  on 
the  magistrates  and  the  police  of  the  country,  and  the  in- 
formers of  the  country, — oflfering  them  bribes  and  premiums 
to  execute  these  atrocious  laws,  and  to  hunt  the  Catholic 
people  and  the  Catholic  priesthood  of  Ireland  as  if  they 
were  ferocious  and  untamable  wolves.  And,  my  friends, 
Mr.  Froude  justifies  all  this  on  two  grounds.  Not  a  single 
word  has  he  of  compassion  for  the  people  who  were  thus 
treated.  Not  a  single  word  has  he  of  manly  protest  against 
the  shedding  of  that  people's  blood  by  unjust  persecutions, 
as  well  as  their  robbery  by  legal  enactment.  But,  he  says, 
6 


122  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

there  were  two  reasons  wliich,  in  his  mind,  seemed  to 
justify  the  atrocious  action  of  the  English  Government. 
The  fii-st  of  these  was,  that,  after  all,  these  laws  were  only 
retaliation,  ui:)on  the  Catholics  of  Ireland,  for  the  terrible 
persecutions  that  were  sujffered  by  the  Huguenots,  or  Prot- 
estants of  France.  And,  he  says,  that  the  Protestants  of 
Ireland  were  only  following  the  example  of  King  Louis 
XIV.,  who  revoked  the  "Edict  of  Nantes."  Let  me  ex- 
plain this  somewhat  to  you.  The  "  Edict  of  Nantes  "  was  a 
law  that  gave  religious  liberty  to  the  French  Protestants  as 
well  as  the  French  Catholics.  It  was  a  law  founded  on 
justice.  It  was  a  law  founded  on  the  sacred  rights  that  be- 
long to  man.  And  this  law  was  revoked ;  consequently  the 
Protestants  of  France  were  laid  open  to  persecution.  But, 
there  is  this  difference  between  the  French  Protestants  and 
the  Catholics  of  Ireland : — The  French  Protestants  had 
never  had  their  liberty  guaranteed  to  them  by  treaty ;  the 
Irish  Catholics  had  their  liberties  guaranteed  by  the  Treaty 
limerick, — the  treaty  they  won  by  their  own  brave 
etfids  and  swords.  The  *'  Edict  of  Nantes  "  was  revoked  ; 
'-  that  revocation  was  no  breach  of  any  royal  word 
pledged  to  them.  The  Treaty  of  Limerick  was  broken  with 
the  Catholics  of  Ireland  ;  and,  in  the  breach  of  it,  the  King 
of  England,  the  Parliament  of  England,  the  aristocracy  of 
England,  and  the  people  of  England,  as  well  as  the  mis- 
erable Irish  Protestant  faction  at  home,  became  perjurers 
before  history  and  the  world.  Here  are  the  words  of  the 
celebrated  Edmund  Burke  on  this  very  subject  of  the  rev- 
ocation of  this  edict : — 

"  This  act  of  injustice  "  (says  the  great  Irish  statesman), 
**  which  let  loose  on  that  monarch,  Louis  XIV.,  such  a  tor- 
rent of  invective  and  reproach,  and  which  threw  such  a  dai'k 
cloud  over  the  splendor  of  such  an  illustrious  reign — falls 
far  short  of  the  case  of  Ireland." 


IRELAND  AND  AMERICA.  123 

Kemember,  be  is  an  English  statesman, — tlioiigh  of  Irish 
birth, — and  a  Protestant  who  speaks  : 

''  The  privileges  which  the  Protestants  of  France  enjoyed 
antecedent  to  this  revocation,  were  far  greater  than  the 
E-oman  Catholics  of  Ireland  ever  aspired  to,  under  the  Prot- 
estant Establishment.  The  number  of  their  sufferers,  if 
considered  absolutely,  is  not  half  of  ours ;  and,  if  consid- 
ered relatively  to  the  body  of  the  community,  it  is  perhaps 
not  a  twentieth  part.  Then  the  penalties  and  incapacities 
which  grew  from  that  revocation,  are  not  so  grievous  in  their 
nature,  or  so  certain  in  their  execution,  nor  so  ruinous,  by 
a  great  deal,  to  the  people's  prosperity  in  that  State,  as  those 
which  were  established  for  a  perpetual  law  in  the  unhappy 
country  of  Ireland." 

In  fact,  what  did  the  revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes 
do  ?  It  condemned  those  who  relapsed  into  the  Protestant 
faith,  after  having  renounced  it, — it  condemned  them ;  not, 
indeed,  to  the  confiscation  of  their  goods, — there  was  no 
confiscation,  except  in  cases  of  relapsation,  and  in  cases  of 
quitting  the  country.  There  was  nothing  at  all  of  that  com- 
plicated machinery  which  we  have  described  in  referring  to 
Ireland's  persecutions ;  there  was  nothing  at  all  beggaring 
one  portion  of  the  population,  and  giving  its  spoils  to  the 
other  part ;  while,  side  by  side  with  this,  we  find  the  Irish 
people  ruined,  beggared,  persecuted,  and  hunted  to  the 
death ;  and  Mr.  Froude,  the  English  historian,  says :  "  Oh, 
we  were  only  serving  you  as  your  people,  and  your  own 
fellow-religionists  in  France,  were  serving  us !  " 

The  other  reason  that  he  gives  to  justify  these  persecu- 
tions, was  that  "  the  Irish  Catholics  were  in  favor  of  the 
Pretender," — that  is  to  say — of  the  son  of  James  ll. ; — 
*'  and  consequently  were  hostile  to  the  Government."  Now, 
to  that  statement  I  can  give,  and  do  give  a  most  emphatic 
denial.  The  Irish  Catholics  had  had  quite  enough  of  the 
Stuarts :  they  had  shed  quite  enough  of  their  blood  for  that 


124  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

treacherous  and  shameless  race ;  they  had  no  interest  what- 
ever in  the  succession ;  nor  cared  they  one  iota  whether  the 
Elector  of  Hanover,  or  the  son  of  James  II.,  succeeded  to 
the  throne  of  England.  For  well  they  knew,  whether  it  was 
Hanoverian  or  Stuart  that  ruled  in  England,  the  faction  at 
home  in  Ireland,  and  the  prejudices  of  the  English  peoj^le, 
would  make  him,  whoever  he  was,  a  tyrant  over  them  and 
over  their  nation. 

Thus  the  jDcrsecution  went  on ;  and  law  after  law  was 
passed,  to  make  perfect  the  beggary  and  the  ruin  of  the 
Irish  people ;  until  at  length  Ireland  w^as  reduced  to  such 
a  state  of  misery,  that  the  very  name  of  Irishman  was  a 
reproach ;  and  a  small  number  of  the  glorious  race  had 
the  miserable  weakness  to  change  their  faith,  and  to  deny 
the  religion  of  their  fathers  and  their  ancient  race.  The 
name  of  Irishman  was  a  reproach !  My  friends,  Dean 
Swift  was  born  in  Ireland  :  and  he  is  looked  upon  as  a  pa- 
triotic Irishman  ;  yet  Dean  Swift  said  : — "  I  no  more 
consider  myself  an  Irishman,  because  I  happened  to  be  born 
in  Ireland,  than  an  Englishman,  chancing  to  be  born  in  Cal- 
cutta, would  consider  himself  a  Hindoo !  "  Of  the  degi'ada- 
tion  of  the  Irish,  and  their  utter  prostration,  he  went  so  far 
as  to  say,  that  he  would  not  think  of  taking  them  into  ac- 
count, on  any  matter  of  importance,  "  any  more  than  he 
would  of  consulting  the  swine  "  !  Lord  Macaulay  gloats 
over  the  state  of  the  Catholics  in  Ireland,  thus ;  and  Mr. 
Froude  views, — perhaps  not  without  some  complacency, — 
their  misery.  Lord  Macaulay  calls  them  "  Pariahs,"  and 
says  that  they  had  no  existence,  that  they  had  no  liberty 
even  to  breathe  in  the  land,  and  that  land  their  own  !  And 
we  find  this  very  view  emphasized  by  Lord  Chancellor 
Bowes,  in  the  middle  of  the  century,  rising  in  an  Irish 
court,  laying  down  the  law  quite  coolly  and  calmly,  and  say- 
ing that, — 


IRELAND  AND  AMERICA.  125 

'^  The  la.w  did  not  presume  a  Papist  to  exist  in  the  king- 
dom, nor  could  they  breathe  without  the  connivance  of  Gov- 
ernment !  " 

Chief  Justice  Kobinson  made  a  similar  declaration.  Here 
are  the  words  of  his  Lordship,  the  Chief  Justice  : — 

"  It  appears "  (he  says)  "  plain,  that  the  law  does  not 
suppose  any  such  person  to  exist,  as  an  Irish  Roman  Catho- 
lic." 

And  yet,  at  that  very  time,  we  find  Irishmen  proclaiming 
their  loyalty,  and  saying,  "  Look  at  the  Catholics  of  Ireland, 
how  loyal  they  are !  "  Mr.  Froude  says  that  they  favored 
the  "Pretender"  at  the  very  time  when  the  Government 
itself  was  attributing  the  quietude  of  the  people  in  Ireland, 
not  to  their  prostration,  not  to  their  ruin, — as  was  the  real 
state  of  the  case, — but  to  their  devoted  loyalty  to  the  Crown 
of  England !  "Well  did  that  brave  Irish  gentleman,  John 
Mitchel,  reject  that  idea.  "  They  were,"  he  says,  "  as  de- 
graded as  England  could  make  them  ;  but  there  was  another 
degradation  that  could  only  come  through  themselves,  that 
they  were  not  guilty  of; — and  that  would  be  the  degrada- 
tion of  loyalty." 

Now,  my  fiiends,  we  have  at  this  very  time  an  Irishman 
of  the  name  of  Phelim  O'Neill, — one  of  the  glorious  old  line 
of  Tyrone, — one  in  whose  veins  flowed  the  blood  of  the 
great  and  the  heroic  "  Red  Hugh,"  who  struck  the  Saxon 
at  the  "  Yellow  Ford,"  and  purpled  the  stream  of  the  Black- 
water  with  his  blood ;  one  in  whose  veins  flowed  the,  per- 
haps, still  nobler  blood  of  the  immortal  Owen  Roe  O'Neill, 
the  glorious  victor  of  Benburb.  This  Phelim  O'Neill 
changed  his  religion  and  became  a  Protestant.  But  it 
seemed  to  him  a  strange  and  unnatural  thing  that  a  man  of 
the  name  of  O'Neill  should  be  a  Protestant ;  so  he  changed 
his  name  from  Phelim  O'Neill,  and  called  himself  "  Felix 
Neale"  !     There  has  been  a  good  deal  said  lately  about  the 


126  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IBELAND. 

pronunciation  of  proper  names,  and  what  they  rhyme  with. 
This  man  made  his  name  rhyme  with  eel, — the  slippery  eel. 
Now,  on  this  change  of  the  gentleman's  name  and  religion, 
an  old  Irish  priest  wrote  some  Latin  verses,  which  were 
translated  by  Clarence  Mangan.  I  will  read  them,  just  to 
let  you  see  how  things  were  in  Ireland  at  that  time  :  — 

"  All  things  has  Felix  changed.     He  changed  his  name  ; 
Yet,  in  himself,  he  is  no  more  the  same. 
Scorning  to  spend  his  days  where  he  was  reared, 
To  drag  out  life  among  the  vulgar  herd, 
And  trudge  his  way  through  bogs,  in  bracks  and  brogues, 
He  changed  his  creed,  and  joined  the  Saxon  rogues 
By  whom  his  sires  were  robbed  ;  and  laid  aside 
The  arms  they  bore,  for  centuries,  -with  pride, — 
The  '  ship,'  the  '  salmon,'  and  the  famed  '  Red  Hand; ' 
And  blushed  when  called  O'Neill  ia  his  own  land ! 
Poor,  paltry  skulker  from  thy  noble  race  ! 
Infelix  EeliXj  weep  for  thy  disgrace  ! " 

But,  my  friends,  the  English  Ascendancy, — or  the  Protes- 
tant Ascendancy  in  Ireland,  if  you  will, — seeing,  now,  that 
they  had  got  every  penal  law  that  they  could  ask  for; 
seeing  that  the  only  thing  that  remained  for  them  was  to 
utterly  exterminate  the  Irish  race, — and  this  they  had 
nearly  accomplished :  for  they  had  driven  them  into  the 
wilds  and  wastes  of  Connaught ;  and  they  would  have  killed 
them  all,  only  that  the  work  was  too  much,  and  that  there 
was  a  certain  something  in  the  old  blood,  and  in  the  old 
race,  that  still  terrified  them  when  they  approached  them  ; 
they  had  so  far  subdued  the  Catholics,  that  they  thought, 
now,  at  last,  their  hands  were  free,  and  nothing  remained 
for  them  but  to  make  Ireland,  as  Mr.  Froude  says,  "  a 
garden."  They  were  to  have  every  indulgence  and  every 
privilege.  Accordingly,  they  set  to  work.  They  had  their 
own  Parliament.     No  Catholic  could  come  near  them,  or 


IRELAND  AND  AMERICA.  127 

come  into  tlieir  towns;  they  were  forbidden  to  present 
themselves  at  all.  They  were  greatly  surprised  to  find  that, 
now  the  Catholics  were  crushed  into  the  very  earth,  Eng- 
land began  to  regard  the  Cromwellians  themselves  with  fear 
and  hatred.  What !  They,  the  sons  of  the  Puritans !  Thej^, 
the  brave  men  that  had  slaughtered  so  many  of  the  Irish, 
and  of  the  Catholic  religion  ?  Are  they  to  be  treated  un- 
justly? Is  their  trade,  or  their  commerce,  or  their  Par- 
liament to  be  interfered  with?  Ah!  now,  indeed,  Mr. 
Froude  finds  tears,  and  weeps  them  over  the  folly  of  Eng- 
land;  because  England  interfered  with  the  commerce  and 
with  the  trade  of  the  Protestant  Ascendancy  in  Ireland. 
But  England  did  it.  These  Irish  Protestant  tradesmen  were 
first-class  woollen  weavers :  they  made  splendid  cloth,  which 
took  the  very  best  prices  in  all  the  markets  of  Europe,  be- 
cause the  wool  of  the  Irish  sheep  was  so  fine.  The  English 
Parliament  made  a  law  that  the  Irish  traders  were  not  to 
sell  any  more  cloth ;  they  were  not  to  go  into  any  of  the 
foreign  markets  to  rival  their  English  fellow-merchants. 
They  were  to  stay  at  home ;  they  had  the  island,  and  they 
might  make  the  most  of  it ;  but,  any  trade,  any  freedom ; 
anything  that  would  enrich  Ireland, — that  the  English 
Parliament  denied.  Mr.  Froude  attributes  this,  in  his  lect- 
ure, to  the  accident  that  England,  at  that  time,  happened  to 
be  under  the  dominion  of  a  paltry,  pitiful-hearted  lot  of 
selfish  money-jobbers :  "mere  accident,"  according  to  him: 
but  an  accident  which  he  confesses  so  discontented  the  Orange 
faction  in  Ireland,  that  many  hundreds  of  them  emigrated, 
and  came  over  to  America,  to  settle  in  the  New  England 
States.  There,  as  he  asserts,  with  some  truth,  they  carried 
their  hatred  with  them,  that  was  one  day  to  break  up  the 
British  Empire.  I  have  another  theory  on  this  great  ques- 
tion. I  hold  that  it  was  no  accident  of  the  liour,  at  all,  that 
made  England  place  her  restrictive  laws  on  the  Irish  woollen 


128  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

trade.  I  hold  that  it  was  the  settled  policy  of  JEr.gland, 
These  men,  who  were  now  in  the  ascendancy  in  Ireland,  im- 
agined that,  because  they  had  ruined  and  beggared  the  an- 
cient race,  and  the  men  of  the  ancient  faith,  therefore  they 
were  friends,  and  they  would  be  regarded  as  friends  by  Eng- 
land. I  hold  that  it  was  at  that  time, — as  in  a  great  meas- 
ure it  is  to-day, — the  fixed  policy  of  England  to  keep  Ireland 
poor,  to  keep  Ireland  down,  to  be  hostile  to  Ireland,  no 
matter  who  lives  in  it — whether  he  be  Catholic  or  Protes- 
tant, whether  he  be  Norman,  Cromwellian,  or  Celt.  "  Your 
ancestors,"  says  Curran,  speaking  to  the  men  of  his  time,  a 
hundred  years  afterwards, — "  your  ancestors  thought  them- 
selves the  oppressors  of  their  fellow-subjects;  but  they  were 
only  their  jailors ;  and  the  justice  of  Providence  would  have 
been  frustrated  if  their  own  slavery  had  not  been  the  pun- 
ishment for  their  vice  and  their  folly."  That  slavery  came, 
and  it  fell  on  commerce.  The  Protestant  inhabitants  of  Ire- 
land, the  Protestant  traders  of  Ireland,  the  "  j)!^^^®^'^?"  ^^^ 
the  sons  of  the  "  planters  "  were  beggared  by  the  hostile  leg- 
islation of  England,  simply  because  they  were  now  in  Ire- 
land and  had  an  interest  in  the  Irish  soil,  and  in  the  welfare 
of  the  country. 

The  inimitable  Swift,  speaking  on  this  subject,  makes  use 
of  the  following  quaint  fable  of  Ovid.     He  says : 

"  The  fable  which  Ovid  relates  of  Aracline  and  Pallas  is 
to  this  purpose.  The  goddess  had  heard  of  one  Aracline,  a 
young  virgin,  very  famous  for  spinning  and  weaving.  They 
both  met  upon  a  trial  of  skill,  and  Pallas,  finding  herself  al- 
most equalled  in  her  own  art,  stung  with  rage  and  envy, 
knocked  her  rival  down,  and  turned  her  into  a  spider,  en- 
joining her  to  weave  forever  out  of  her  own  bowels  and  in  a 
very  narrow  compass."  "  I  confess,"  (the  Dean  goes  on,) 
"  that  from  a  boy,  I  always  pitied  poor  Arachne,  and  never 
could  heartily  love  the  goddess,  on  account  of  so  cruel  and 
unjust  a  sentence,  which,  however,  is  fully  executed  upon 


IRELAND  AND  AMERICA,  12S 

IIS  by  England^  with  further  adclitions  of  rigor  and  seiveriiy; 
for  the  greatest  part  of  our  bowels  and  vitals  is  extracted 
v/ithout  allowing  us  the  liberty  of  spinning  and  weaving." 

He  alludes  in  this  to  a  strange  piece  of  legislation,  which 
Mr.  Fronde  acknowledges.  The  Irish  vv^ool  was  famous  for 
its  superior  fineness,  and  the  English  were  outbid  for  it  by 
the  French  manufacturers.  The  French  were  v/illing  to 
give  three  shillings  a  pound  for  the  wool ;  and  the  English 
passed  a  law  that  the  Irish  people, — the  farmers, — should 
not  sell  their  wool  anywhere  but  in  England  ;  so  they  fixed 
their  o^vn  price  on  it ;  and  they  took  the  wool,  made  cloth, 
and,  as  the  Dean  says,  poor  Ireland, — Arachne, — had  to  give 
her  vitals  without  the  pleasure  of  spinning  or  v/eaving.  Then 
the  Dean  goes  on  to  say : — 

"  The  Scripture  tells  us  that  oppression  makes  a  wise  man 
mad ;  therefore  the  reason  that  some  men  in  Ireland  are  not 
mad  is  because  they  are  not  wise  men.  However,  it  were 
to  be  wished  that  oppression  would  in  time  teach  a  little 
wisclom  to  fools." 

Well,  we  call  Dean  Sv/ift  a  patriot.  How  little  did  he 
ever  think, — as  great  a  man  as  he  was, — of  that  oppression, 
compared  with  which  the  restriction  upon  the  wool  trade  was 
nothing, — the  oppression  that  beggared  and  ruined  a  whole 
people  ;  that  drove  them  from  their  land  ;  that  drove  them 
from  every  pleasure  in  life;  that  drove  them  from  their 
country  ;  that  maddened  them  to  desperation  ;  and  all  be- 
cause they  had  Irish  names  and  Irish  blood,  and  because 
they  would  not  give  up  the  faith  which  their  consciences 
told  them  was  the  true  one. 

And  now,  my  friends,  Mr.  Froude,  in  his  lecture,  comes 
at  once  to  consider  the  consequences  of  that  Protestant  emi~ 
gration  from  Ireland  ;  and  he  says  :  "  The  manufacturers  of 
Ireland  and  the  workmen  were  discontented,  and  they 
shipped  off  and  came  to  America."  And  then  he  begins  to 
6* 


laO  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

enlist  tlie  sympatliies  of  America  upon  the  side  of  tlie  Prot- 
estant men  who  came  over  from  Irehind.  If  he  stopped 
here,  I  would  not  have  a  word  to  say  to  the  learned  histo- 
rian. When  an  Englishman  claims  the  sympathy  of  this,  or 
of  any  other  land,  for  men  of  his  blood  and  of  his  religion — 
if  they  are  deserving  of  that  sympathy,  I,  an  Irishman,  am 
always  ready,  and  the  first,  to  grant  it  to  them,  with  all  my 
heart.  And,  therefore,  I  do  not  find  the  slightest  fault  with 
this  learned  Englishman,  when  he  challenges  the  sympathy 
of  Ameri«a  for  the  Orangemen  of  Ireland,  and  the  Protes- 
tants who  came  to  this  country.  If  those  men  were  deserv- 
ing of  American  sympathy,  why  not  let  them  have  it  ? 

But,  Mr.  Froude  went  on  to  say,  that,  whilst  he  claimed 
sympathy  for  the  Protestant  emigrants  from  Ireland,  as 
stanch  Republicans  and  lovers  of  American  liberty,  the 
Catholics  of  Ireland,  on  the  other  hand,  were  clamoring  at 
the  foot  of  the  throne, — telling  King  George  III.  that  they 
would  be  only  too  happy  to  go  out  at  his  command,  and  to 
shed  American  blood  in  his  cause.  "Was  that  statement 
true  or  not  ?  My  friends,  the  learned  gentleman  quoted  a 
petition  that  was  presented  to  Sir  John  Blaquiere,  in  1775, 
the  very  year  that  America  began  to  assert  her  indepen- 
dence. In  that  petition  he  states  that  Lord  Fingal  and  sev- 
eral other  Catholic  noblemen  of  Ireland,  speaking  in  the 
name  of  the  Irish  people,  pronounced  the  American  Pevolu- 
tion  an  unnatural  rebellion  ;  and  expressed  their  desire  to  go 
out,  and  to  devote  themselves,  for  "  the  best  of  kings,"  to 
the  suppression  of  American  liberty.  First  of  all,  I  ask, 
when, — at  auy  time  in  our  history, — was  Lord  Fingal,  or 
Lord  Howth,  or  Lord  Kenmare,  or  any  one  of  these  *'  Cath- 
olic Loi-ds  of  the  Pale,"  as  they  were  called, — when,  at  any 
time  in  our  history,  has  any  one  of  them  been  authorized  to 

speak  in  the  name  of  the  Irish  people Their 

presence  in  Ireland, — although  they  have  kept  the  Catholic 


IRELAND  AND  AMERICA,  131 

faith, — their  presence  in  Ireland  in  every  struggle,  in  Qxery 
national  movement,  has  been  a  cross,  a  hindrance,  and  stum- 
bling-block to  the  Irish  nation ;  and  the  people  know  it  well. 
But,  not  doubting  Mr.  Fronde's  word  at  all,  and  only  anx- 
ious to  satisfy  myself  by  historic  research,  I  have  looked  for 
this  petition.  1  have  found,  indeed,  a  petition  in  "  Curry's 
Collection."  I  have  found  a  petition  signed  by  Lord  Fingal 
and  other  Irish  Catholic  noblemen,  addressed  to  his  Majesty 
the  King,  in  which  they  protest  their  loyalty  in  terms  of  the 
most  slavish  and  servile  adulation.  But  in  that  petition  I 
have  not  been  able  to  discover  one  single  word  about  the 
American  Bevolution,  not  a  single  word  of  address  to  the 
King,  expressing  a  desire  to  destroy  the  liberties  of  Amer- 
ica ;  not  one  word  about  America  at  all.  I  have  sought, 
and  my  friends  have  sought,  in  the  records,  and  in  every 
document  that  was  at  our  hands,  for  this  petition  of  which 
Mr.  Froude  speaks ;  and  we  could  not  find  it  at  all.  There 
must  be  a  mistake  somewhere  or  other.  It  is  strange  that  a 
petition  of  so  much  importance  should  not  be  published 
amongst  the  documents  of  the  time.  We  know  that  Sir 
John  Blaquiere  was  Chief  Secretary  to  the  Lord  Lieutenant 
of  Ireland.  Naturally  enough,  the  petition  would  go  to 
him,  not  to  rest  with  him,  but  to  be  presented  to  the  King. 
And,  yet,  I  think  I  may  state  with  certainty,  that  the  only 
petition  that  w^as  presented  to  the  King,  in  1775,  was  the 
one  of  which  I  speak,  and  in  which  there  was  not  a  single 
word  about  America,  or  about  the  American  Revolution. 
But  the  learned  historian's  resources  are  far  more  ample 
than  mine;  his  resources  of  time  of  preparation  and  of  tal- 
ent; his  resources  in  the  varied  sources  of  information 
amongst  which  he  has  lived  and  passed  his  years  ; — and  no 
doubt  he  Avill  be  able»to  explain  this.  In  any  case,  the  pe- 
tition of  which  he  spoke  must  have  passed  through  Sir  John 
Blaquiere's  hands,  for  he  was  the  Secretary  of  the   Lord 


132  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

Lieutenant;  then  it  must  have  passed  from  him  to  the  Lord 
Lieutenant,  to  be  inspected  by  him ;  then,  from  him  to  the 
Prime  Minister  of  England  ;  and  then  to  his  Majesty,  the 
King.  We  have  an  old  proverb  in  Ireland,  which  indicates 
the  way  they  manage  these  things  at  home  : — "  Speak  to  the 
maid,  to  speak  to  the  mistress,  to  speak  to  the  master." 

And  now  I  come  to  the  question.  In  that  glorious  year 
of  1775,  the  Catholics  of  Ireland  were  down  in  the  dust; 
the  Catholics  of  Ireland  had  no  voice  ;  they  had  not  as  much 
as  a  vote  for  a  parish  beadle,  much  less  for  a  Member  of 
Parliament.  Does  Mr.  Froude  mean  to  tell  the  American 
people  that  these  unfortunate  people  would  not  have  wel- 
comed the  cry  that  came  across  the  Atlantic, — the  cry  of  a 
people  who  rose  like  a  giant — yet  only  an  infant  in  age, — 
proclaiming  the  eternal  liberty  of  men  and  of  nations, — ■ 
proclaiming  that  no  people  upon  the  earth  should  be  taxed 
without  representation ;  and  gave  the  first  blow,  right  across 
the  face  of  English  tyranny,  that  that  old  tyrant  had  received 
for  many  a  year ;  a  blow  before  which  England  reeled,  and 
which  brought  her  to  her  knees  ?  Does  he  mean  to  tell  you 
or  me,  citizens  of  America,  that  such  an  event  as  this  would 
be  distasteful  to  the  poor,  oppressed  Catholics  of -Ireland  ? 
It  is  true  that  England  had  crushed  them  as  far  as  she 
could,  but  she  had  not  taken  the  manhood  out  of  them. 
Now,  here  are  the  proofs  of  this  : — 

Howe,  the  English  General,  in  that  very  year  of  1775, 
writes  to  his  Government,  expressing  his  preference  for  Ger- 
man troops.  You  know  England  was  in  the  habit  of  em- 
ploying Hessians.  I  do  not  say  this  with  the  slightest  feel- 
ing of  disrespect ;  I  have  the  deepest  respect  for  the  great 
German  element  in  this  country ;  but  in  these  times,  certain 
it  is,  and  it  is  an  historic  fact,  that  thfe  troops  of  Hesse  Cas- 
sel,  Hesse  Darmstadt,  and  other  of  the  smaller  German 
States,  were  hired   out  by  their  princes  to    whoeAer  took 


IRELAND  AND  AMERICA,  133 

them,  and  engaged  them  to  fight  their  battles.  General 
Howe  proceeds  to  compliment  the  old  race  of  Ireland,  by 
giving  emphasis  to  his  ''  great  dislike  for  Irish  Catholic 
soldiers ;  as  they  are  not  at  all  to  be  depended  upon." 

They  sent  out  four  thousand  troops  from  Ireland ;  but 
listen  to  this  : — Arthur  Lee,  a  diplomatic  agent  of  America 
in  Europe,  writes  home  to  his  Government  in  June,  1777, 
and  he  says : 

"  The  resources  of  our  enemy  "  (that  is  to  say,  of  Eng- 
land) "  are  almost  annihilated  in  Germany,  and  their  last 
resort  is  to  the  Roman  Catholics  of  Ireland.  They  have  al- 
ready experienced  their  unwillingness  to  go,  every  man  of  a 
regiment  raised  there  "  (in  Ireland)  "  last  year,  having  oh- 
liged  them  to  ship  him  off  tied  and  houndP 

When  the  Irish  Catholic  soldiers  heard  that  they  were  to 
go  to  America  to  cut  the  throats  of  the  American  people,  and 
to  scalp  them,  they  swore  they  never  would  do  it ;  and  they 
had  to  take  them  and  carry  them  on  board  the  ships.  But 
Arthur  Lee  goes  on  to  say,  "  and  most  certainly  they  will 
desert  more  than  any  other  troops  whatsoever  "  ! 

Francis  Plowden,  a  historian  of  the  time,  tells  us,  that  the 
war  against  America  was  not  very  popular,  even  in  England. 
*"■■  But,  in  Ireland,"  he  says,  "  the  people  assumed  the  cause 
of  America  from  sympathy." 

Let  us  leave  Ireland  and  come  to  America.  Let  us  see 
how  the  great  men,  who  were  building  up  the  magnificent  edi- 
fice of  their  country's  freedom, — laying  the  foundation  in 
their  own  best  blood,  in  those  days, — how  they  regarded  the 
Irish.  In  1790,  the  immortal  George  Washington  received 
an  address  from  the  Catholics  of  America,  signed  by  Bishop 
Carroll,  of  Maryland,  Dominick  Lynch,  of  New  York, 
and  many  others.  In  reply  to  that  address,  the  calm,  mag- 
nificent man  makes  use  of  these  words : — 

"  I  hope  "  (he  says)  "  ever  to  see  America  among  the  fore- 


134:  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

most  nations  in  examples  of  justice  and  liberality;  audi 
presume  that  your  fellow-citizens  will  not  forget  the  patriotic 
part  which  you  took  in  the  accomplishment  of  their  revolu- 
tion, and  the  establishment  of  their  government ;  or  the  im- 
portant assistance  they  received  from  a  nation  in  v/hich  the 
Roman  Catholic  religion  is  professed." 

In  the  month  of  December,  1781,  the  Friendly  Sons  of 
Saint  Patrick,  in  Philadelphia,  (of  which  the  first  as  well 
as  the  last  President  was  General  Stephen  Moylan,  brother 
of  the  Catholic  Bishop,  Francis  Moylan,  of  Cork,)  made 
George  Washington  an  adopted  member  of  their  society. 
These  friendly  Sons  of  Saint  Patrick  were  great  friends  of 
the  great  American  Father  of  his  country.  When  his  army 
lay  at  Yalley  Forge,  twenty-seven  members  of  this  society 
of  the  Friendly  Sons  subscribed  between  them,  in  July,  1780, 
one  hundred  and  three  thousand  five  hundred  pounds,  Penn- 
sylvania currency, — principally  gold  or  silver  coin, — for 
the  American  troops,  who  were  in  dire  want  of  provisions. 
George  Washington  accepts  the  fellowship  of  their  society, 
and  he  says  : — "  I  accept  with  singular  pleasure  the  ensign 
of  so  worthy  a  fraternity  as  that  of  the  Sons  of  St.  Patridk 
in  this  city — a  society  distinguished  for  the  firm  adherence 
of  its  members  to  the  glorious  cause  in  which  we  are  em- 
barked." 

During  that  time,  what  greater  honor  could  have  been  be- 
stowed by  Washiugton,  than  that  which  he  bestowed  upon 
the  Irish  ?  When  Arnold  betrayed  the  cause  at  West  Point 
— the  traitor  Arnold — a  name  handed  down  to  eternal  exe- 
cration in  the  history  of  America, — Washington  was  obliged 
to  choose  the  very  best  and  most  reliable  soldiers  in  his  army, 
and  send  them  to  West  Point — to  guard  the  place  that  was 
so  well-nigh  being  betrayed  by  the  traitor.  From  his  whole 
army  he  selected  the  celebrated  "  Pemisylvania  Line,"  as 
they  were  called ;  and  those  men  were  mainly  made  up  of  [rish- 


IRELAND  AND  AMERICA,  135 

men.  Nay,  more  ;  not  merely  of  Protestant  Irishmen,  or 
Korth  of  Ireland  men,  or  of  those  who  were  in  that  day 
called  "  Scotch  Irish," — for  that  was  the  name  which,  in  the 
era  of  the  Revolution,  designated  Mr.  Fronde's  friends,  who 
emigrated  from  Ulster.  But  looking  over  the  muster-roll  of 
the  "  Pennsylvania  Line,"  we  find  such  names  as  Dufioy, 
Maguire,  and  O'Brien ; — these  were  the  names — these  and 
such  as  these  are  the  names — not  of  ''  Palatines,"  nor  of 
Scotch  "  Planters,"  in  Ireland,  but  they  are  the  names  of 

thorough-bred  Irish  Celts And  now  I  wish  to 

give  you  a  little  incident  in  the  history  of  that  celebrated 
corps,  to  let  you  see  how  their  hearts  were  in  relation  to 
America : — ■ 

*'  During  the  American  Revolution,"  (says  Mr.  Carey,)  "  a 
band  of  Irishmen  were  embodied  to  avenge  in  the  country 
of  their  adoption,  the  injuries  of  the  country  of  their  birth. 
They  formed  the  major  part  of  the  celebrated  Pennsylvania 
Line.  They  bravely  fought  and  bled  for  the  United 
States.  JMany  of  them  sealed  their  attachment  with  their 
lives.  Their  adopted  country  was  shamefully  ungrateful. 
The  wealthy,  the  independent,  and  the  luxurious,  for  whom 
they  fought,  were  rioting  in  the  superfluities  of  life,  while 
their  defenders  were  literally  half  starved  and  half  naked. 
Their  shoeless  feet  marked  with  blood  their  tracks  upon  the 
highway.  They  long  bore  their  grievances,  joatiently.  They 
at  length  murmured.  They  remonstrated  ;  they  implored  a 
supply  of  the  necessaries  of  life,  but  in  vain ;  a  deaf  ear  was 
turned  to  their  complaints.  They  felt  indignant  at  the  cold 
neglect  and  ingratitude  of  that  country,  for  which  so  many 
of  their  companions  in  arms  had  expired  on  the  crimson  field 
of  battle.  They  held  arms  in  their  hands.  They  had 
reached  the  boundary  line,  beyond  which  forbearance  and  sub- 
mission become  meanness  and  pusillanimity.  As  ail  appeals 
to  tiie  gratitude,  justice,  and  generosity  of  their  country  had 
proved  unavailing,  they  determined  to  try  another  course. 
They  appealed  to  her  fears  ;  and  they  mutinied." 

"Well,  as  soon  as  the  English  commanders  heard  that  tlie 
Irish  soldiers  had  mutinied,  what  did  they  do  ? 


136  ENGLISH  MISRULE  m  IRELAWD. 

"The  intelligence  was  carried  to  the  British  can: p,  and 
there  it  spread  joy  and  gladness.  Lord  Howe  hoj)ed  tliat  a 
period  had  arrived  to  the  rebellion,  as  it  would  have  been 
termed,  and  that  there  was  a  glorious  oj^portunity  of  crush- 
ing the  half-formed  embryo  of  the  Republic.  He  counted 
largely  on  the  indignation  and  on  the  resentment  of  the  na- 
tives of  the  Emerald  Isle  ;  he  knew  the  irascibility  of  their 
tempers ;  he  calculated  on  the  diminution  of  the  strength  of 
the  rebels,  and  accessions  to  the  number  of  the  royal  army. 
Messengers  were  dispatched  to  the  mutineers.  They  had 
carte  blanche.  They  were  to  allure  the  poor  Hibernians  to 
return,  like  Prodigal  Children,  from  feeding  upon  husks,  to 
the  plentiful  fold  of  their  royal  master.  Liberality  herself 
presided  over  Howe's  offers.  Abundant  supplies  of  provi- 
sions, comfortable  clothing,  to  their  heart's  desire ;  all 
arrears  of  bounty ;  and  pardon  for  past  offences  were 
offered.  There  was,  however,  no  hesitation  among  these 
poor,  neglected  warriors.  They  refused  to  renounce  pov- 
erty, nakedness,  suffering,  and  ingratitude.  Splendid  temp- 
tations were  held  out  in  vain  ;  there  was  no  Judas,  no  Arnold 
there.  They  seized  upon  the  tempters.  They  trampled 
upon  their  shining  ore.  They  sent  them  to  their  General's 
tent.  The  miserable  wretches  paid  with  their  forfeited  Kves 
for  attempting  to  seduce  a  band  of  ragged,  forlorn,  and  de- 
serted, but  illustrious  heroes.  We  prate  "  (he  says)  ''  about 
the  old  iloman  and  Grecian  patriotism.  One-half  of  it  is 
false.  In  the  other  half  there  is  nothing  that  excels  this 
noble  trait,  which  is  worthy  of  the  pencil  of  a  West  or  a 
Trumbull." 


Mark  !  how  it  is  that  America  regarded  them — mark  the 
testimony  of  some  of  America's  greatest  men.  Mr.  Froude 
seems  to  think  that  the  American  people  look  upon  the 
Irish  nation  and  the  Irish  people  pretty  much  with  the 
eyes  with  which  the  men  of  the  last  century  would  look 
upon  them  in  Ireland,  where  the  Irish  nation  meant  the 
Protestant  people  of  Ireland,  and  the  Catholics  did  not  ex- 
ist at  all.  Was  this  the  view  that  America  and  her  states- 
men took  of  them  ?     No  !     Here  is  the  testimony  of  George 


IRELAND  AND^  AMERICA.  137 

Wasliington  Parke  Custis,  the  adopted  son  of  Washington. 
The  Irish,  in  1829,  won  Catholic  Emancipation  ;  and  before 
that  time,  when  they  were  struggling  for  emancipation,  they 
appealed  for  sympathy  and  moral  support  to  America.  And 
now  this  is  how  this  great  American  gentleman,  who  had 
been  one  of  the  foremost  of  American  advocates  for  the 
emancipation  of  the  Irish  Catholics,  speaks  of  them : 

"  And  why  is  this  imposing  appeal  made  to  our  sympa- 
thies ?  It  is  an  appeal  fi-om  the  Catholics  of  Ireland,  whose 
generous  sons,  alike  in  the  days  of  our  gloom  and  of  our 
glory,  shared  in  our  misfortunes  and  joyed  in  our  successes  ; 
who,  with  undaunted  courage  breasted  the  storms  which 
once,  threatening  to  overwhelm  us,  howled  with  fearful  and 
desolating  fury  through  this  now  happy  land;  who,  with 
aspirations,  deep  and  fervent,  for  our  cause,  whether  under 
the  walls  of  the  Castle  of  Dublin,  in  the  shock  of  our  liber- 
ty's battles,  or  in  the  feeble  and  expiring  accents  of  famine 
and  misery,  amid  the  horrors  of  the  prison  ship,  cried  from 
their  hearts,  '  God  save  America  !  '  Tell  me  not  "  (he  goes 
on  to  say) — "  tell  me  not  of  the  aid  we  received  from 
another  European  nation,  in  the  struggle  for  Independence. 
That  aid  was  most,  nay,  all-essential  to  our  ultimate  suc- 
cess ;  but  remember  the  years  of  the  conflict  that  had  rolled 
away ;  and  many  a  hard  field  had  been  fought  ere  the  fleets 
and  the  armies  of  France  gave  us  their  powerful  assistance. 
We  gladly  and  gratefully  admit  that  the  chivalry  of  France, 
led  by  the  young,  the  great,  the  good  and  gallant  Lafayette, 
was  most  early  and  opportunely  at  our  side.  But  the 
capture  of  Burgoyne  had  ratified  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence. The  renowned  combats  of  the  Heights  of 
Charleston  and  Fort  Moultrie;  the  disastrous  and  bloody 
days  of  Long  Island,  of  Brandywine,  and  of  Germantown ; 
the  glories  of  Trenton,  of  Princeton,  and  of  Monmouth,  all 
had  occurred ;  and  the  rank  grass  had  grown  over  the  grave 
of  many  a  poor  Irishman  who  had  died  for  America,  ere  the 
Flag  of  the  Lilies  floated  in  the  field  by  the  Star-spangled 

Banner Of  the  chiefs  of  tlie  army  and  the  navy  of 

the  Be  volution,  we  have  to  thank  Caledonia  for  the  honored 
names  of  Mercer,  McDougal,  Stirling,  St.  Clair,  and    the 


138  ENGLISH  MISBTILE  m  IRELAND, 

cMvalric  Jones ;  England  for  a  Davie.  But  of  the  opera* 
lives  in  war — the  soldiers  I  mean — np  to  the  coming  of  the 
French,  Ireland  furnished  in  the  ratio  of  a  hundred  for  one 
of  any  foreign  nation  "whatever." 

Then  this  generous  American  gentleman,  to  whom  Ire- 
.land  appealed  for  sympathy — for  Mr.  Froude's  is  not  the 
first  appeal  that  has  been  made  to  the  people  of  America ; — 
this  high-minded  gentleman  goes  on  to  say  : 

"  Then  honored  be  the  good  old  service  of  the  sons  of 
Erin,  in  the  War  of  Independence.  Let  the  shamrock  be 
intertwined  with  the  laurels  of  the  Revolution ;  and  truth 
and  j  ustice,  guiding  the  pen  of  history,  inscribe  on  the  tab- 
lets of  America's  remembrance — eternal  gratitude  to  Irish- 
men !  " 

Kemember  that  this  was  "Washington's  adopted  son ;  re- 
member that  he  tells  us,  that  the  old,  gray-headed,  crippled 
veterans,  who  had  fought  under  his  father's  banner  in  that 
War  of  Independence,  were  accustomed  to  come  to  his 
house ;  and  there  he  would  receive  them  at  his  door,  and 
bring  them  in ;  and  he  tells  us  most  affectionately  of  one 
old  Irishman  who  had  fought  in  the  wars;  who,  after 
drinking  the  health  of  the  gentlemen  who  had  entertained 
him,  lifted  up  his  aged  eyes,  and,  with  tears,  said  :  "  Here's 
to  the  memory  of  General  Washington,  who  is  in  heaven  !  " 
He  says  on  the  same  occasion : 

"  Americans,  recall  to  your  minds  the  recollections  of  the 
heroic  time  when  Irishmen  were  our  friends,  when  in  the 
whole  world  we  had  not  a  friend  beside.  Look  to  the 
period  that  tried  men's  souls,  and  you  will  find  that  the 
sons  of  Erin  rushed  to  our  ranks;  and  amid  the  clash  of 
steel,  on  many  a  memorable  day,  many  a  John  Byrne  was 
not  idle." 

Kemember,  he  does  not  say  "many  a  Spragg^''  or 
**  many  a  Gibhs^  or  the  men  that    ^me  over  with  Crom- 


IRELANB  AND  AMERICA.  139 

well ;  but,  honest  Jolin  Byrne  !  Who  was  this  honest 
John  Bjrrne  of  whom  he  speaks  ?  He  was  an  Irish  soldier 
of  Washington's,  who  was  taken  prisoner  by  the  English, 
and  put  on  board  a  prison-ship,  in  the  harbor  of  Charleston  ; 
and  we  have  it  on  the  authority  of  Mr.  Custis,  that  he 
there  was  left  in  chains  in  the  hold  of  the  ship,  pesti- 
lence being  on  board.  He  was  more  than  half-starved ;  he 
was  scarcely  able,  when  he  was  summoned  on  deck,  to  crawl 
like  a  poor,  stricken  creature  to  the  commander's  feet,  to 
hear  what  sentence  was  to  be  pronounced  upon  him.  And 
then  the  English  commander  offered  him  liberty,  life, 
clothing,  food,  and  money,  if  he  would  give  up  the  cause  in 
which  he  was  taken  prisoner,  and  join  the  ranks  of  the 
British  army.  In  a  voice  scarcely  able  to  speak,  with  a 
hand  scarcely  able  to  lift  itself,  the  Irishman  looked  to 
Heaven,  and,  throwing  up  his  hands,  cried  out,  "  Hurrah 
for  America  !  " 

In  the  face  of  such  facts,  in  the  face  of  such  testimony,  in 
the  presence  of  the  honored  name  and  record  of  George 
Washington,  testifying  to  what  Irish  Catholic  men  have 
done  for  America,  Mr.  Froude  speaks  as  vainly  as  if  he 
were  addressing  the  hurricane  that  sweeps  over  his  head, 
when  he  tries  to  impress  the  American  mind  and  the  Amer- 
ican people  with  any  prejudice  against  the  Catholics  of  Ire- 
land. 

What  does  MacNevin  tell  us?  In  the  year  1807,  when 
America  was  preparing  for  her  second  war  with  England, 
MacNevin  records,  that,  "  One  of  the  offences  charged  upon 
the  Irish — and  one  among  the  many  pretexts  for  refusing 
redress  to  the  Catholics  of  Ireland,  was  that  sixteen  thou- 
sand of  them  fought  on  the  side  of  America."  But  he  adds 
that,  "many  more  thousands  are  ready  to  maintain  tlie 
Declaration  of  Independence ;  and  that  will  be  their  second 
offence." 


140  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

NoTV,  my  friends,  there  are  other  testimonies  as  well  as 
these  of  the  men  of  the  time.  We  have  the  testimony  of 
American  literary  gentlemen,  such,  for  instance,  as  that  of 
Mr.  James  K.  Paulding.  Here  are  the  words  of  this  dis- 
tinguished gentleman : — 

"  The  history  of  Ireland's  unhappy  connection  ^dth  Eng- 
land exhibits,  from  first  to  last,  a  detail  of  the  most  perse- 
vering, galling,  grinding,  insulting,  and  systematic  oppression 
to  be  found  anywhere,  except  among  the  helots  of  Sparta. 
There  is  not  a  national  feeling  that  has  not  been  insulted 
and  trodden  under  foot ;  a  national  right  that  has  not  been 
withheld,  until  fear  forced  it  from  the  grasp  of  England ;  or 
a  dear  or  ancient  prejudice  that  has  not  been  violated  in 
that  abused  country.  As  Christians,  the  people  of  Ireland 
have  been  denied,  under  penalties  and  disqualifications,  the 
exercise  of  the  rites  of  the  Catholic  religion,  venerable  for 
its  antiquity,  admirable  for  its  unity,  and  consecrated  by 
the  belief  of  some  of  the  best  men  that  ever  breathed.  As 
men  they  have  been  deprived  of  the  common  rights  of 
British  subjects,  under  the  pretext  that  they  were  incapable 
of  enjoying  them,  which  pretext  they  had  no  other  founda- 
tion for  than  resistance  of  oppression,  only  the  more  severe 
b}^  being  sanctioned  by  the  laws.  England  first  denied  them 
the  means  of  improvement,  and  then  insulted  them  with  the 
imputation  of  barbarism." 

Dr.  Johnson  had  anticipated  Mr.  Paulding  when  he  said  : — 
"  There  is  no  instance,  even  in  the  Ten  Persecutions,  of 
such  severity  ar>  that  which  has  been    exercised   over  the 
Catholics  of  Ireland." 

Thus  thought  and  thus  spoke  the  men  whose  names  are 
bright  in  the  records  of  literary  America,  and  of  the  world. 
Take  again  the  ;iddress  agreed  to  by  the  members  of  the 
Legislature  of  JMsryland.  Speaking  of  Ireland,  these  Amer- 
ican Senators  and  Legislators  say  : — 

"  A  dependency  of  Great  Britain,  Ireland  has  long  lan- 
guished under  oppression  reprobated  by  humanity,  and  dis- 
countenanced  by  just  policy.     It  would  argue   penury  of 


IRELAND  AND  AMERICA.  \i\ 

human  feelings,  and  ignontnce  of  human  rights,  to  submit 
patiently  to  those  oppressions.  The  lapse  of  centuries  has 
witnessed  the  struggles  of  Ireland  but  with  only  partial  suc- 
cess. Rebellions  and  insurrections  have  continued  with  but 
short  intervals  of  tranquillity.  Many  of  the  Irish,  like  the 
FrencL,  are  the  hereditary  foes  of  Great  Britain.  America 
has  opened  her  arms  to  the  oppressed  of  all  nations.  No 
people  have  availed  themselves  of  the  asylum  with  more 
alacrity  or  in  greater  numbers  than  the  Irish.  High  is  the 
meed  of  praise,  rich  is  the  reward  which  Irishmen  have 
merited  from  the  gi'atitude  of  America.  As  heroes  and 
statesmen  they  honor  their  adopted  country." 

Bravo  America  !  When  such  glorious  words  as  these  are 
wiped  out  of  the  records  of  American  history ;  when  the 
generous  sentiments  which  inspired  them  have  ceased  to  be 
a  portion  of  the  American  nature  ; — then,  and  not  before 
then,  will  Mr.  Froude  get  the  verdict  which  he  asks  from 
America  to-day. 

I  have  looked  through  the  *'  American  Archives  "  and  I 
have  found  that  the  foundation  of  this  sympathy  lies  in  the 
simple  fact  that  the  Catholics  of  Ireland  were  heart  and  soul 
with  you — with  you,  American  gentlemen — with  you  and 
your  fathers  in  their  glorious  struggle.  I  find  in  the  third 
volume  of  the  "  American  Archives  "  a  letter  from  Ireland, 
dated  September  1st,  1775,  to  a  friend  in  New  York,  in 
which  the  writer  says  : — 

"  Most  of  the  people  here  wish  well  to  the  cause  in  which 
you  are  engaged,  and  would  rejoice  to  find  you  continue 
firm  and  steadfast.  .  .  .  They"  (the  Government)  "are 
raising  recruits  throughout  the  kingdom.  The  men  are  told 
they  are  only  going  to  Edinburgh  to  learn  military  disci- 
pline, and  are  then  to  return." 

Before  they  got  a  single  Irishman  to  enlist  they  had  to 
tell  him  a  lie,  well  knowing  that,  if  they  told  him  that  they 
were  going  to  arm  him  and  send  him  to  America  to  fight 


142  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IBELANB. 

against  the  American  people,  he  would  never  think  of  enter- 
ing the  ranks  of  the  British  Army.  A  certain  Major 
Koache  went  down  to  Cork  to  recruit  men  for  America,  and 
he  made  a  great  speech  to  them.  I  read  his  speech  ;  it  was 
very  laughable.  He  called  upon  them  as  Irishmen,  by  all 
that  they  held  sacred,  and  the  glorious  nationality  to  which 
they  belonged,  the  splendid  monarch  that  governed  them, — 
and  in  fact  the  very  words  almost  which  Mr.  Froude  alleges 
to  have  been  used  by  Lord  Fingal,  were  used  by  Major 
Koache  to  these  poor  men.  And  then  he  held  up  the  golden 
guineas  and  pound  notes  before  them :  and  here  is  the  re- 
sult, as  given  in  the  third  volume  of  the  "  American  Ar- 
chives :  " 

"  An  account  of  the  success  of  Major  Roache  in  raising 
recruits  to  fight  against  the  Americans.  The  service  is  s© 
distasteful  to  the  people  of  Ireland  in  general,  that  few  of 
the  I'ecruiting  officers  can  prevail  upon  the  men  to  enlist 
and  fight  against  their  American  brethren." 

The  same  year,  in  the  British  House  of  Commons,  Gov- 
ernor Johnstone  said : — 

"  I  maintain  that  some  of  the  best  and  the  wisest  men  in 
this  country  are  on  the  side  of  the  Americans;  and  that,  in 
Ireland,  three  to  one  are  on  the  side  of  the  Americans." 

In  the  House  of  Lords,  in  the  same  year  of  '75,  the  Duke 
of  Kichmond  makes  this  statement : — 

"  Attempts  have  been  made  to  enlist  the  Irish  Roman 
Catholics,  but  the  Ministry  know  well  that  these  attempts 
have  proved  unsuccessful." 

We  find  again  the  Congress  of  America  addressing  the 
people  of  Ireland,  in  that  memorable  year  of  1775;  and 
here  are  the  words  that  America's  first  Congi-ess  sends  over 
the  Atlantic  waves  to  the  afilicted,  down-trodden,  Catholic 
Irish : — 


IBELAND  AND  AMERICA.  143 

"Accept  our  most  grateful  acknowledgments  for  the 
friendly  disposition  you  have  always  shown  towards  us. 
We  know  that  you  are  not  without  your  grievances;  we 
sympathize  with  you  in  your  distress,  and  are  pleased  to 
find  that  the  design  of  subjugating  us  has  persuaded  the  ad- 
ministration to  dispense  to  Ireland  some  vagrant  rays  of 
ministerial  sunshine.  Even  the  tender  mercies  of  govern- 
ment have  long  been  cruel  towards  you.  In  the  rich  past- 
ures of  Ireland  many  hungry  parricides  have  fed  and  grown 
strong  laboring  in  her  destruction." 

We  find  such  words  as  these  addressed  not  to  the  **  Pala- 
tines "  and  "  Planters  ;  "  for  if  the  Congress  of  America  was 
addressing  the  Planters  and  Cromwellians  in  Ireland,  they 
would  not  have  had  the  bad  taste  to  use  such  language  as 
this;  "In  the  rich  pastures  of  Ireland  many  hungiy parri- 
cides have  fed  and  have  grown  strong  laboring  in  her  de- 
struction." 

Benjamin  Franklin,  of  glorious  and  immortal  name,  was 
in  Versailles,  as  Minister  from  the  American  Government ; 
and  he  writes  to  the  people  of  Ireland,  in  Octoberj  1778. 
Here  are  his  words : — 

"  The  misery  and  distress  which  your  ill-fated  countiy  has 
been  so  frequently  exposed  to,  and  has  so  often  experienced 
by  such  a  combination  of  rapine,  treachery,  and  violence  as 
would  have  disgraced  the  name  of  government  in  the  most 
arbitrary  country  in  the  world,  have  most  sincerely  affected 
your  friends  in  America,  and  have  engaged  the  most  serious 
attention  of  Congress." 

Now  I  come  to  another  honored  name ;  and  I  find  the 
testimony  of  Gulian  C.  Verplanck.  When  the  Catholic 
Emancipation  Act  was  passed,  the:*'e  was  a  banquet  in  the 
city  of  iSTew  York  to  celebrate  the  event ;  and  this  distin- 
guished American  gentleman  proposed  a  health,  or  a  toast, 
and  it  was  a  Catholic  toast — "  The  memory  of  the  Penal 
Laws — requiescant  in  pace.    May  they  rest  in  peace."  "  And 


144  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND.  ! 

now  that  they  are  gone,"  continues  Mr.  Yerplanck,  "  I  have  \ 
a  good  word  to  say  for  them."  What  was  that  good  word  ?  | 
Here  it  is : — 

"  Both  in  the  glorious  struggle  for  independence,  and  in 
our  more  recent  contest  for  national  rights,  those  laws  gave  ^ 
to  the  American  flag  the  support  of  hundreds  of  thousands  \ 
of  brave  hearts  and  strong  arms  ;  and  have  they  not,  too,  con- 
tributed at  the  same  time  an  equal  proportion  of  intellectual  i 
and  moral  power  ?  "  I 

Coming  down  to  our  time,  passing  over  the  testimony  of  j 

Henry  Clay  and  his  sympathies  with  the  Irish  nation  (which  < 

he  speaks  of  as  so  "  identified  ^vith  our  own  as  to  be  almost  '. 

part  and  parcel  of  ours — bone  of  our  bone  and  flesh  of  our  \ 

flesh  ") — passing  over  this  magnificent  testimony,  America,  \ 

even  at  this  hour,  is  mourning  over  the  grave  of  a  great  man.  | 
But  a  few  days  ago  a  nation  accompanied  to  his  last  resting- 
place  William  H.  Seward.     And  this  illustrious  statesman 

said  in  1847  : —  : 

"  Ireland  not  only  sympathized  profoundly  with  the  trans-  : 
Atlantic  colonies  in  their  complaints  of  usurpation,  but  with 

inherent  benevolence  and  ardor  she  yielded  at  once  to  the  | 

sway  of  the  great  American  idea  of  universal  emancipation.  • 

The  bitter  memory  of  a  stream  of  ages  lifted  up  her  thoughts ;  \ 

and  she  was  ready  to  follow  to  the  war,  for  the  rights  of  hu-  j 
man  nature,  the  propitious  God  that  seemed  to  lead  the  way." 

Finally,  one  extract  and  I  have  done  with  this  portion  of 
my  lecture.  I  find  that  such  were  the  relations  between  \ 
Ireland  and  America  in  this  struggle,  that  a  certain  Captain  ^ 
Weel  s,  of  the  ship  Heprisal,  in  the  summer  of  1776,  cap- 
tured three  prizes  near  the  West  Indies,  which  were  English  ; 
property.  He  detailed  some  of  his  own  men  on  board  of  \ 
them,  and  sent  them  to  the  nearest  port  to  be  adjudged  as  j 
prizes.  Shortly  after,  he  came  across  another  vessel,  and  he  I 
let  her  go,  finding  she  was  Irish  property. 


IRELAND  AND  AMERICA.  145 

The  Marquis  de  Chasteloux,  a  distinguished  Frenchman, 
who  was  in  America  in  1782,  published  an  account  of  his 
travels  in  America.  An  English  gentleman  in  his  transla- 
tion of  this  work,  in  a  note  to  a  friendly  allusion  to  an  Irish 
soldier  of  the  Revolution,  writes  thus  : — 

"  An  Irishman,  the  instant  he  sets  foot  on  American 
ground,  becomes,  ipso  facto^  an  American.  This  was  uni- 
formly the  case  during  the  whole  of  the  late  war.  Whilst 
Englishmen  and  Scotsmen  were  regarded  with  jealousy  and 
distrust,  even  with  the  best  recommendation  of  zeal  and 
attachment  to  the  cause,  a  native  of  Ireland  stood  in  need 
of  no  other  certificate  than  his  dialect.'^'' 

Which  shows  that  the  Irishman  that  our  friend  is  speak- 
ing of  was  not  a  Palatine  nor  a  Planter,  but  a  genuine 
Paddy ^  and  no  mistake. 

"  His  sincerity  was  never  called  in  question ;  he  was  sup- 
posed to  have  a  sympathy  of  sufiering  :  and  every  voice 
decided,  as  it  were,  intuitively  in  his  favor.  Indeed,"  (he 
adds,)  "their  conduct  in  the  late  revolution  amply  j  ustified 
this  favorable  opinion ;  for  whilst  the  Irish  emigrant  was 
fighting  the  battles  of  America,  by  sea  and  land,  the  Irish 
merchants,  particularly  at  Charleston,  Baltimore,  and 
Philadelphia,  labored  with  indefatigable  zeal,  and  at  all 
hazards,  to  promote  the  spirit  of  enterprise,  and  increase 
the  wealth  and  maintain  the  credit  of  the  country.  Their 
purses  were  always  opened,  and  their  persons  devoted  to  the 
common  cause.  On  more  than  one  imminent  occasion  Con- 
gress owed  their  existence,  and  America  possibly  her  preser- 
vation, to  the  fidelity  and  firmness  of  the  Irish.  I  had  the 
honor "  (he  says)  "  of  dining  with  an  Irish  Society,  com- 
posed of  the  steadiest  Whigs  on  the  Continent,  at  the  City 
Tavern,  in  Philadelphia,  on  St.  Patrick's  Day." 

Mr.  Froude  must  not  run  away  with  the  assertion  that  the 
Lish  merchants  of  Charleston,  and  Baltimore,  and  Phila- 
delphia were  the  Puritan  settlers.  If  they  had  been,  they 
would  have  gone  home  and  eaten  a  cold  dinner  on  St.  Pat- 
rick's Day. 

7 


146  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

So  much  for  America,  and  Ireland's  relations  with  her. 

When  the  four  thousand  men  were  asked  for  by  the  Eng- 
lish Government,  to  go  out  and  fight  Americans,  they 
offered  to  send  to  Ireland  four  thousand  Protestant  Hes- 
sians ;  and  the  Irish  Parliament  of  that  day  must  have  had 
a  ray  of  grace,  for  they  refused  the  Hessians.  They  said 
"  No  !  If  the  country  is  in  danger,  we  can  arm  some  of 
our  Protestant  people,  and  they  can  keep  the  peace."  Out 
of  this  sprang  the  "  Volunteers  of  '82."  Mr.  Froude  has 
little  or  nothing  to  say  of  them  ;  consequently,  as  I  am  an- 
swering, or  trying  to  answer  him,  I  must  restrict  myself 
also  in  their  regard.  All  I  can  say  is  this  :  Ireland,  in  1776, 
began  to  arm.  At  first  the  movement  was  altogether  a 
Protestant  one,  and  confined  to  the  North.  The  Catholics 
of  Ireland,  ground,  as  they  were,  into  the  very  dust, — no 
sooner  did  the  Catholics  of  Ireland  hear  that  their  Protes- 
tant oppressors  were  anxious  to  do  something  for  the  old 
land,  than  they  came  and  said  to  them ;  "  "We  will  forgive 
everything  that  ever  you  did  to  us ;  we  will  leave  you  the 
land ;  we  will  leave  you  our  country ;  we  will  leave  you  the 
wealth  and  the  commerce ;  all  we  ask  of  you  is  to  put  a  gun 
into  our  hands,  for  one  hour,  for  Ireland."  At  first  they 
were  refused,  and,  my  friends,  when  they  found  they  would 
not  be  allowed  to  enter  the  ranks  of  the  "  Yolunteers,"  they 
had  the  generosity,  out  of  their  poverty,  to  collect  money 
and  to  hand  it  over  to  clothe  the  army  of  their  Protestant 
fellow-citizens.  Anything  for  Ireland  !  Anything  for  the 
man  that  would  lift  his  hand  for  Ireland,  no  matter  what 
his  religion  was  !  The  old  generous  spirit  was  there  ;  the 
love  that  never  could  be  extinguished  was  there,  self-sacri- 
ficing as  of  old  ;  aye,  the  humble  love  for  any  man,  no  mat- 
ter who  he  was,  that  was  a  friend  of  their  native  land — was 
there,  in  such  generous  acts  as  this  of  the  blood  of  the 
O'Conors,  the  O'Briens,  the  O'Neills,  and  the  O'DonneUs. 


IBELAND  AND  AMERICA.  147 

But,  after  a  time,  our  Protestant  friends  in  the  "  Yolun- 
tet?rs  "  began  to  think  that  tliese  Catholics,  after  all,  were 
fine,  strapping  fellows.  Somehow,  centuries  of  persecution 
could  not  knock  the  manhood  out  of  them.  "  They  be  strong 
men,"  says  an  old  writer,  "  and  can  bear  more  of  hard  liv- 
ing, hunger,  and  thirst  than  any  other  people  that  we  know 
of."  God  knows,  our  capability  of  enduring  nakedness,  hun- 
ger, and  thirst,  and  every  other  form  of  misery,  was  well 
tested ! 

Accordingly,  we  find  that,  1780,  there  were  fifty  thousand 
Catholics  amongst  the  Volunteers — every  man  of  them  with 
arms  in  his  hands.  Mr.  Froude  says  that  Grattan — the  im- 
mortal Gra,ttan — whilst  he  wished  well  for  Ireland — whilst 
he  was  irreproachable  in  every  way,  public  or  private, — that 
at  this  time  he  was  guilty  of  a  great  mistake.  For,  says  the 
historian,  "  England  had  long  ruled  Ireland  badly ;  but  she 
had  been  taught  a  lesson  by  America,  and  she  was  now  anx- 
ious to  govern  Ireland  properly  and  well";  and  no  sooner 
was  an  abuse  pointed  out  than  it  was  immediately  remedied; 
and  no  sooner  was  a  just  law  demanded  than  it  was  immedi- 
ately granted ;  and  the  mistake  Grattan  made  was  that,  in- 
stead of  insisting  on  just  legislation  from  England,  he  stood 
up  and  insisted  on  the  legislative  independence  of  the  Irish 
nation,  and  that  the  Irish  should  have  the  making  of  their 
own  laws.  Thus,"  according  to  Mr.  Froude,  "  the  energies 
of  the  nation,  which  were  wasted  in  political  contention, 
could  have  been  husbanded  to  influence  England  to  grant 
just  and  fair  laws."  But  he  goes  on  the  assumption,  my 
dear  American  friends,  and  others, — the  gentleman  assumes 
to  say  that  England  was  willing  to  redress  grievances,  to  re- 
peal the  bad  laws  and  make  good  ones ;  and  he  proves  this 
assertion  by  saying  that  "  she  struck  off  the  wrists  of  the 
Irish  merchants  the  chains  of  their  commercial  slavery," 
and  that  she  "  restored  to  Ireland  her  trade."     You  remem- 


148  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  mELANI). 

b(  T  that  tliis  trade  was  taken  away  from  them :  the  woollen 
trade,  like  nearly  every  other  form  of  trade,  was  discounte- 
nanced or  mined. 

Now,  I  wish,  for  the  sake  of  the  honor  of  England,  that 
she  was  as  generous,  or  even  as  just,  as  Mr.  Froude  repre- 
sents her,  and,  no  doubt,  would  wish  her  to  be.  But  we 
have  the  fact  before  us,  that,  in  1779,  when  a  movement  was 
made  to  rejoeal  the  law  restricting  the  commerce  of  Ireland, 
the  English  Parliament,  the  English  King,  the  Lord  Lieu- 
tenant of  Ireland  and  the  English  Government  opposed  it  to 
the  very  death.  They  would  not  have  it :  not  one  fetter 
would  they  strike  off  from  the  chain  that  encumbered  even 
the  Protestant  "planters"  of  Ireland.  And  it  was  only 
when  Grattan  rose  up  in  the  Irish  Parliament,  and  insisted 
that  Ireland  should  get  back  her  trade — it  was  only  then, 
that  England  consented  to  listen — because  there  were  fifty 
thousand  "Volunteers"  armed  outside. 

The  state  of  Ireland  at  this  time  is  thus  described : — 

"  Such  is  the  Constitution  that  three  millions  of  good, 
faithful  subjects,  in  their  native  land,  are  excluded  from 
every  trust,  power,  and  emolument  in  the  State,  civil  and 
military  ;  excluded  from  all  corporate  rights  and  immunities ; 
expelled  from  grand  juries,  and  restrained  in  petit  juries;  ex- 
cluded in  every  direction  from  every  trust,  from  every  in- 
corpoi'ated  society,  and  from  every  establishment,  occasional 
or  fixed,  that  was  instituted  for  public  defence  ;  from  the 
bank,  from  the  bench,  from  the  exchange,  from  the  univer- 
sity, from  the  college  of  physicians,  and  from  what  are  they 
not  excluded?"  (demands  the  writer.)  "There  is  no  in- 
stitution which  the  wit  of  man  has  invented,  or  the  progress 
of  fiociety  has  produced,  which  private  charity  or  public  mu- 
nificence has  founded  for  the  advancement  of  education 
around  us,  for  the  permanent  relief  of  age,  infirmity,  and 
misfortune,  the  superintendence  of  which,  in  all  cases  where 
common  charity  would  be  jDromoted,  from  the  enjoyment  of 
which  the  Legislature  has  not  excluded,  and  does  exclude 
the  Catholics  of  Irel^d." 


IRELAND  AND  AMEBIC  A.  149 

Grati;aii  rose  up  in  the  Senate,  and,  lifting  up  his  heroic 
hand  and  voice  to  Heaven,  he  swore  before  the  God  of  Jiistice 

that  that  shoukl  come  to  an  end The  English 

Government  met  him  with  a  determination  as  great  as  thai 
of  the  Irish  patriot,  and  swore  equally  that  that  should  re- 
main the  law.  Was  it  not  time  to  assert  for  Ireland  her 
independence?  Mr.  Froude  claims  that  England  vv^illingly 
consented  to  give  up  the  restrictions  on  Irish  commerce. 
When  Grattan  proposed  it  in  the  House,  an  official  of  the 
Government,  named  Hussey  Burgh,  rose  up,  to  the  astonish- 
ment of  the  Government,  and  seconded  Grattan's  resolution, 
to  the  rage  and  consternation  of  the  Government  faction, 
and  the  unequivocal  dissatisfaction  of  the  Executive  and  the 
Ministerial  bench.  "Hussey  Burgh,  the  Prime  Sergeant, 
was  one  of  the  most  eloquent  and  fascinating  men  of  the 
day ;  he  was  an  official  of  the  Government,  and  its  stanch 
supporter, — one  to  whom,  from  the  spirit  of  his  office,  pa- 
triotism should  have  been  impossible."  He  moved  "that 
we  beg  to  represent  to  his  Majesty  that  it  is  not  by  any 
temporary  expedients,  but  by  free  trade  alone,  that  this  na- 
tion is  now  to  be  saved  from  impending  ruin." 

While  they  were  fighting  the  Government  from  within, 
Grattan  took  good  care  to  have  the  Volunteers  drawn  out 
in  the  streets  of  Dublin — there  they  were  in  their  thousands, 
— armed  men,  drilled  men;  and  they  had  their  cannon  with 
them,  and  about  the  moutlis  of  the  guns  they  had  tied  a  la- 
bel or  card,  inscribed  with  these  Avords :  "  Free  Trade  for 
Ireland,  or  else — "  So  it  happened  that  Lord  North  was 
obliged,  greatly  against  his  will,  to  introduce  measures  to 
restore  to  Ireland  her  trade.  Now,  I  ask,  was  not  Henry 
Grattan  justified,  seeing  that  it  was  only  by  pointing  the 
cannon's  mouth  at  "the  best  of  Governments"  they  threw 
off  the  restraints  on  Irish  trade; — was  he  not  justified  when 
he  said,  "  The  English  Parliament  will  never  do  us  justice ; 


160  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

and,  in  the  name  of  God,  now  that  we  have  onr  men  armed 
around  us,  let  us  demand  for  IreUind  perfect  independence 
of  the  people  and  the  Parliament  of  England,  and  the  right 
to  make  whatever  laws  are  most  conducive  to  the  welfare 
of  our  own  people." 

It  is  perfectly  true  that  Grattan  failed ;  it  is  perfectly  true 
that  although  that  declaration  of  independence  was  pro- 
claimed by  law,  and,  as  Mr.  Froude  observes,  "  Home  Kule 
was  tried  in  Ireland  from  '82  to  '99,  and  it  was  a  failure." 
All  this  is  true  ;  but  why  was  it  so,  my  friends  ?  Keflect 
upon  this ;  the  Irish  Parliament  did  not  represent  the  na- 
tion. The  Irish  Parliament  consisted  of  three  hundred  mem- 
bers; and  of  these  three  hundred  there  were  only  seventy- 
two  that  were  elected  by  the  people.  All  the  others  were 
"  nomination  boroughs,"  as  they  were  called.  Certain  great 
lords,  peers,  and  noblemen  had  three  or  four  little  towns  on 
their  estates,  which  towns  returned  a  member  of  Parliament ; 
and  the  poor  people  who  had  the  votes  were  completely  at 
the  mercy  of  the  landlord, — the  rack-renting  landlord, — and 
whomsoever  he  nominated  was  elected  as  member.  Just  as, 
in  the  Protestant  Church,  whenever  a  bishop  dies,  the  Queen 
writes  to  the  clergy  and  says:  "  You  v/ill  name  such  a  one 
for  bishop ;  "  and,  then,  they  elect  him,  after  the  Queen  has 
nominated  him. 

Even  of  the  seventy-two,  who  were,  in  some  sense,  repre- 
sentatives of  the  people,  whom  did  they  represent  ?  There 
were  nearly  three  millions  of  Catholics  in  Ireland,  men  of 
intellect  and  of  education,  in  spite  of  all  the  laws  that  were 
made  against  schools  and  colleges  for  Catholics ;  there  were 
nearly  three  millions  of  Irish  Catholics  in  the  land,  and  not 
a  man  of  them  had  a  vote  even  for  a  Member  of  Parlia- 
ment. And,  therefore,  this  wretched  Parliament,  that  only 
represented  one-tenth  of  the  nation,  if  it  was  venal  and 
corrupt,  it  is  no  disgrace  to  the  Irish  people,  and  it  is  no 


IRELAND  AND  AMEEICA.  151 

argament  to  prove  tliat  tliey  did  not  know  how  to  govern 
themselves. 

Meantime,  the  "  Volunteers  "  made  the  most  tremendous 
mistake,  and  that  was  by  letting  Catholics  in  amongst  theit 
ranks.  This  is  what  my  Lord  Sheffield  says ; — and  it  will 
give  you  clearly  to  understand,  ladies  and  gentlemen  of 
America,  how  the  English  people  looked  upon  us  Irish  one 
hundred  years  ago ;  indeed,  according  to  Cobbett,  one  of 
their  most  distinguished  writers,  this  was  how  they  looked 
upon  you,  until  you  taught  them  with  the  sword  to  look 
upon  you  with  more  respect :  "  It  is  now  necessary,"  says 
Lord  Sheffield,  'Ho  go  back  to  the  year  1778,  to  take  notice 
of  a  phenomenon  which  began  to  appear  at  that  time ;  it  is 
a  wonderful  thing."     What  was  it  ? 

"  The  like  has  never  been  seen  in  any  country,  at  least 
where  there  was  an  established  government.  To  describe 
it :  it  is  an  army  unauthorized  by  the  law,  and  unnatural ; 
aud  generally  known  by  the  name  of  the  Volunteers  of 
Ireland.  The  arms  issued  from  the  public  stores  were  in- 
sufficient to  supply  the  rapid  increase  of  the  Volunteers ; 
the  rest  were  procured  by  themselves,  and  the  necessary 
accoutrements,  with  a  considerable  number  of  field-pieces. 
The  Opposition  in  England  speak  highly  of  them  ;  and  the 
supporters  of  the  Government  in  both  countries  mention 
them  with  civility." 

It  is  not  easy  to  be  uncivil  to  an  army  of  95,000  men. 

"The  wonderful  efforts  of  England  in  America  were, 
somehow  or  other,  wasted  to  no  purpose." 

The  wonderful  efforts  of  England  in  America  were  wasted 
to  no  purpose !  There  happened  to  be  a  man  in  the  way, 
and  that  man  was  George  Washington. 

He  goes  on  to  speak  of  the  Volimteers.  The  "many- 
headed  monster,"  as  he  calls  it,  "  now  began  to  tliiuk  it 


152  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

would  be  proper  to  reform  the  State  and  to  purge  the  Par- 
liament of  Ireland."     Henry  Grattan  said, 

"  I  will  never  claim  freedom  for  600,000  of  my  country- 
men while  I  leave  2,000,000  or  more  of  them  in  chains. 
Give  the  Catholics  of  Ireland  their  civil  rights  and  their 
franchise ;  give  them  the  power  to  return  members  to  the 
Irish  Parliament,  and  let  the  nation  be  represented;  put 
an  end  to  the  rotten  nomination  boroughs  :  let  the  members 
represent  the  people  truly,  and  you  will  have  reformed  your 
Parliament,  and  you  will  have  established  forever  the  liber- 
ties which  the  Volunteers  have  won." 

This  was  what  the  Volunteers  wanted ;  and  for  this  they 
got,  from  my  Lord  Sheffield,  the  very  genteel  name  of  "  the 
many-headed  monster."  But  they  did  something  still  more 
strange  than  this.  *'  So  far,"  he  says,  "  everything  went  on 
as  might  have  been  expected.  But  there  is  another  part  of 
their  conduct  neither  natural  nor  rational.  Some  of  the 
corps,  for  the  purpose  of  increasing  their  numbers,  perhaps, 
or  possibly  without  consideration,  admitted  Roman  Catho- 
lics." [They  must  have  been  mad.  They  did  it  "  without 
consideration."]  *'  And  others,  perhaps,  enrolled  them 
latterly  for  the  sake  of  acquiring  numbers  and  strength  to 
force  a  reform  of  the  government  from  England  " — [to  force 
a  reform,  which  England  would  never  permit ;  because  she 
wanted  to  have  a  rotten  Parliament  to  her  hand,  and 
through  that  Parliament  to  destroy  the  country]  : — 

"  Well,  but  that  Protestants  should  allow  and  encourage 
this  also,  and  form  a  whole  corps  of  Roman  Catholics,  when 
all  Europe  was  at  peace,  is  scarcely  to  be  believed, — above 
all,  in  view  of  their  number.  It  has  become  the  system  of 
the  Roman  Catholics  to  enroll  as  many  as  possible,  particu- 
larly since  the  peace  of  last  summer ;  and  there  is  nothing 
unequivocal  in  this.  Already,  perhaps,  five  thousand  of 
these  are  in  arms,  and  in  a  year  or  less,  they  may  be  ten 
thousami.  All  the  Protestants  are  gradually  quitting  the 
service;  and  the  only  Protestants  are  those  who  continue 


IRELAND  AND  AMERICA.  153 

since  the  peace,  in  order  to  prevent  the  Yohmteer  arms 
from  fallin2:  into  more  danscerous  hands,  and  to  counter- 
bahince  the  Catholics." 

Then  he  goes  on  to  say : 

"  They  are  many.  If  they  were  only  one-fifth,  instead 
of  four-fifths,  of  the  people,  the  writer  of  this  observation 
would  be  the  last  man  to  suggest  a  difliculty  about  their 
being  admitted  into  power  or  every  right  or  advantage  given 
to  them.  But  they  do  not  forget  the  situation  in  which 
their  ancestors  have  been.  They  are  not  blind  to  what  they 
miglit  acquire.  Persevering  for  upwards  of  two  centuries 
under  every  discouragement,  under  every  severity,  subjected 
to  every  disadvautage,  does  not  prove  an  indifierence  to  the 
principles  of  their  religion.  Thinking  as  they  do,  feeling  as 
they  do,  believing  as  they  do,  they  would  not  be  men  if 
they  did  not  wish  for  a  change.  Nor  would  Protestants  be 
worthy  of  the  designation  of  reasonable  creatures  if  they 
did  not  take  precautions  to  prevent  it." 

Thus,  it  is  to  this  fact,  that  the  English  Government 
steadily  opposed  Peform, — that  they  would  not  hear  of 
Reform,  because  they  wanted  to  have  a  venal,  corrupt, 
miserable  seventy-two  in  their  hands, — it  is  to  this  fact, 
and  not  to  any  mistake  of  Grattan,  that  we  owe  the  collapse 
of  that  magnificent  revolutionary  movement  of  the  ''  Irish 
Volunteers." 

Well,  England  now  adopted  another  policy.  We  have 
evidence  of  it.  As  soon  as  William  Pitt  came  into  office 
as  Pi'emier,_  his  first  thought  was — "  I  will  jjut  an  end  to 
this  Irish  difficulty.  I  will  have  no  more  laws  made  in 
Ireland,  for  Irishmen.  I  will  unite  the  two  Parliaments 
into  one,  and  I  will  not  leave  Ireland  a  single  shadow  of 
Legislative  Inde])endence."  This  being  the  programme,  how 
was  it  to  be  worked  out?  Mr.  Froude  says,  or  seems  to 
say,  that  "  the  Rebellion  of  '98  was  one  of  those  outbursts 
of  Irish  ungovernable  passion  and    of   Irish    incoastancy, 


154-  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

accompanied  by  cowardice  and  by  treachery,  with  wliich " 
(acciording  to  him)  "  we  are  all  so  familiar  in  the  history  of 
Ireland."  Now,  I  have  a  different  account  of  '98.  Mr. 
I'ronde  says  that  "  the  Rebellion  arose  out  of  the  disturb' 
ance  of  men's  minds  created  by  the  French  Revolution ;  " 
and,  indeed,  there  is  a  great  deal  of  truth  in  this.  The 
French  Revolution  set  all  the  world  in  a  blaze,  and  the 
flame  spread,  no  doubt,  to  Ireland. 

Mr.  Froude  goes  on  to  say  that  "  the  Irish  Government 
were  so  hampered  by  this  free  Parliament,  this  Parliament 
of  Grattan's,  that  although  they  saw  the  danger  approach- 
ing, they  could  not  avert  it ; — their  hands  were  bound ; 
nay,  more,"  he  adds,  "  the  Government,  bound  by  constitu- 
tional law,  and  by  Parliament,  could  not  touch  one  of  the 
United  Irishmen  until  they  had  first  committed  themselves 
by  some  overt  act  of  treason  ;■ — in  other  words,  until  they 
had  first  risen." 

Now,  according  to  this  historian,  there  was  nothing  done 
to  molest,  slay,  or  persecute  the  people  of  Ireland  until 
they  rose  in  arms  in  '98.  My  friends,  the  rising  of  1798 
took  place  on  the  23d  of  May.  On  that  day  the  "  United 
Irishmen"  rose.  I  ask  you  now  to  consider  whether  the 
Government  had  any  share  in  that  rising,  or  in  creating 
that  rebellion  ? 

As  early  as  1797,  the  country  was  beginning  to  be  dis- 
turbed, according  to  Mr.  Froude ;  and,  during  the  first 
three  montlis  of  January,  February,  and  March,  in  '98,  we 
find  Lord  Moira  giving  his  testimony  as  to  the  action  of  the 
English  Government. 

"  My  Lords,"  (he  says  in  the  House  of  Lords,)  "  I  have 
seen  in  Ireland  the  most  absurd,  as  well  as  the  most  disgust- 
ing tyranny,  that  any  nation  ever  groaned  under.  I  have 
been  myself  a  witness  of  it  in  many  instances ;  I  have  seen 
it  practised  unchecked,  and  the  effects  that  have  resulted 


IBELAND  AND  AMERICA.  155 

from  it  have  been  such  as  I  have  stated  to  your  lordsliips. 
I  have  seen  in  that  country  a  marked  distinction  between 
the  English  and  the  Irish.  I  have  seen  troops  that  liave 
been  sent  there  full  of  this  prej  udice — that  every  inhabitant 
of  that  kingdom  is  a  rebel  to  ^q  British  Govermnent." 

Troops  were  sent  there  before  the  Rebellion,  and  told — 
*'  every  man  you  meet  is  a  rebel." — "  I  have  seen  most 
wanton  insults  practised  upon  men  of  all  ranks  and  con- 
ditions." 

They  sent  their  thousands  into  Ireland  in  preparation  for 
the  Rebellion ;  they  had,  between  Welsh  and  Scotch  and 
Hessian  regiments,  and  between  English  and  Irish  militia, 
an  army  of  one  hundred  and  thii-ty  thousand  men  prepared 
for  the  work ;  and,  in  this  way,  they  goaded  the  people  on 
to  rebellion.  The  rack,  indeed,  was  not  at  hand,  but  the 
punishment  of  "picketing"  was  in  practice,  which  had  been 
for  some  years  abolished  as  too  inhuman  even  for  the  treat- 
ment of  savages. 

Lord  Moira  goes  on  to  say  that  he  had  knoAvn  of  a  man 
who,  in  order  to  extort  confession  of  a  crime  from  him,  was 
** picketed"  until  he  actually  fainted; — ["picketing" 
meant  putting  them  on  the  point  of  a  stake  upon  one  foot,] 
— "  and  picketed  a  second  time  until  he  fainted  again  ;  and, 
again,  as  soon  as  he  came  to  himself,  picketed  the  third 
time  until  he  fainted  once  more  ;  and  all  this  on  mere  sus- 
picion." 

Not  only  was  this  punishment  used,  but  every  species  of 
torture.  Men  were  taken  and  hung  up  until  they  were  half 
dead,  and  then  threatened  with  a  repetition  of  the  cruel  tort- 
ure unless  they  made  confession  of  imputed  guilt.  They 
sent  their  soldiers  into  the  country,  and  quartered  them  at 
what  was  called  "  free  quarters."  The  English  Yeomanry 
and  the  Orange  Yeomanry  of  Ireland  lived  ujDon  the  people ; 
they  violated  the  women,  they  killed  the  aged,  they  plun- 


156  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

dered  the  houses,  they  set  fire  to  the  villages,  they  exercised 
every  form  of  torture  the  most  terrible, — this  terrible  sol- 
diery. All  this  took  place  before  a  single  rising  in  Ireland, 
before  the  rebellion  of  '98  sprung  up  at  all.  We  had  a 
brave  and  gallant  man  sent  to  Ireland  at  that  time — Sir 
Kalph  Abercrombie ; — and  he  declared  he  was  so  frightened 
and  disgusted  at  the  conduct  of  the  soldiers,  that  he  threw 
up  his  commission,  and  refused  to  take  the  command  of  the 
forces  in  Ireland.  He  issued  a  general  order  in  February, 
'98 — the  rebellion  did  not  begin  until  May.  He  began  his 
general  order  with  these  words : — "  The  very  disgraceful 
frequency  of  great  cruelties  and  crimes,  and  the  many  com- 
plaints of  the  conduct  of  the  troops  in  this  kingdom,  has  too 
unfortunately  proved  the  army  to  be  in  a  state  of  licentious- 
ness that  renders  it  formidable  to  every  one,  except  the 
enemy."  Then  he  threw  up  his  commission  in  disgust ;  and 
General  Lake  was  sent  to  command  in  Ireland.     He  says : — 

"  The  state  of  the  country  and  its  occupation  previous  to 
the  insurrection,  is  not  to  be  imagined,  except  by  those  who 
witnessed  the  atrocities  of  every  description  committed  by 
the  military  and  the  Orangemen,  that  were  let  loose  upon 
the  unfortunate  and  defenceless  population." 

Then  he  gives  a  long  list  of  terrible  hangings,  burnings, 
and  murderings.  We  read  that  "  at  Dunlavin,  in  the  county 
of  Wicklow,  previous  to  the  rising,  thirty-four  men  were 
shot  without  any  trial."  But  it  is  useless  to  enumerate  or 
continue  the  list  of  cruelties  perpetrated.  It  will  suffice  to 
say  that  where  the  military  were  placed  on  free  quarters  all 
kinds  of  crimes  were  committed;  but  the  people  were  no 
worse  off  than  those  living  where  no  soldiers  were  quar- 
tered ;  for  in  the  latter  places  the  inhabitants  were  called  to 
their  doors  and  shot  without  ceremony,  and  every  house  was 
plundered  or  burned.  Nay,  more !  We  have  Mr.  Emmet, 
in  his  examination,  giving  his  evidence  and  declaring  that 


IRELAND  ASD  AMERICA,  ^^  I57 

Hi  was  the  fault  of  tlie  Government,  this  rebellion  of  '98 
The  Lord  Chancellor  put  the  following  question  to  Mr 
Emmet :  "  Pi"ay,  Mr.  Emmet  " — this  was  in  August,  '98 — 
"  what  caused  the  late  insurrection  ?  "  to  which  Mr.  Emmet 
replied,  "  Free  quarters,  house-burnings,  tortures,  and  thf 
military  execution's  in  the  counties  of  Kildare,  Canow,  and 
Wicklow."  Before  the  insurrection  broke  out,  numbers  of 
houses,  with  their  furniture,  in  which  concealed  arms  had  been 
found,  were  burned.  Numbers  of  people  were  daily  scourged, 
picketed,  and  otherwise  put  to  death  to  force  confession  of 
concealed  crime  or  plots.  Outrageous  acts  of  severity  w^ere 
often  committed  even  by  persons  not  in  the  regular  troops. 
But  we  have  the  evidence  of  the  brave  Sir  John  Moore,  the 
hero  of  Corunna.  He  was  in  Ireland  at  the  time,  in  mili- 
tary command,  and  he  bears  this  testimony.  Speaking  of 
Wicklow,  the  very  hot-bed  of  the  insurrection,  he  says,  that 
"  moderate  treatment  by  the  Generals  and  the  preventing  of 
the  troops  from  pillaging  and  molesting  the  people,  would 
soon  restore  tranquillity ;  the  latter  would  certainly  be  quiet 
if  the  Yeomanry  would  behave  with  tolerable  decency,  and 
not  seek  to  gratify  their  ill-humor  and  revenge  upon  the 
poor." 

We  have  the  testimony  of  Sir  William  Napier,  not  an 
Irishman,  but  a  brave  English  soldier,  saying : 

"  What  manner  of  soldiers  were  these  fellows  who  were  let 
loose  upon  the  w^retched  districts  in  which  the  Ascendancy 
were  placed,  killing,  burning,  and  confiscating  every  man's 
property ;  and,  to  use  the  venerable  Abercrombie's  words, 
'  they  were  formidable  to  everybody  but  the  enemy '  ?  We 
ourselves  were  young  at  the  time  ;  yet,  being  connected  with 
the  army,  we  were  continually  among  the  soldiers  listening 
with  boyish  eagerness  to  their  ex2:)eriences ;  and  well  we 
remember,  with  horror,  to  this  day,  the  tales  of  lust,  of 
bloodshed  and  pillage,  and  the  recital  of  their  foul  actions 
against  the  miserable  peasantry,  which  they  used  to  relate." 


15S    ,,         ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND, 

I  ask  you,  in  all  this  goading  of  tlie  people  into  ret  el 
lion,  who  was  accountable  if  not  the  infamous  governmepnt 
which,  at  the  time,  ruled  the  destinies  of  Ireland  ?  I  ask 
you  are  the  Irish  people  accountable,  if,  from  time  to  time, 
the  myrmidons  of  England  have  been  let  loose  upon  them, 
ravaging  them  like  tigers,  violating  every  instinct  of  Irish 
love  of  land,  of  Irish  purity,  of  Irish  faith  ?  Is  it  not  a 
natural  though  a  terrible  thing,  that,  after  all  these  provoca- 
tions, which  they  deliberately  put  before  the  people,  they 
goaded  them  into  the  rebellion  of  '98,  and  so  pre2)ared  the 
way  for  that  union  of  1800  which  followed.  Mr.  Froude 
says :  "  Several  hot-headed  priests  put  themselves  at  the 
head  of  their  people."  There  was  a  Father  John  Murphy 
in  the  county  of  Wexford.  He  came  home  from  his  duties, 
one  day,  to  find  the  houses  of  the  poor  people  around  sacked 
and  burned;  to  find  his  unfortunate  parishioners  huddled 
about  the  blackened  walls  of  the  chapel,  crying :  "  Soggarth 
dear,  what  are  we  to  do  ?  what  are  we  to  do  ?  where  are  we 
to  fly  from  this  terrible  persecution  that  has  come  upon  us  ?  " 
And  Father  John  Murphy  got  the  pikes,  put  them  in  their 
hands,  and  put  himself  at  their  head !  So  you  see,  my 
friends,  there  are  two  sides  to  every  story. 

My  friends,  I  have  endeavored  to  give  you  some  portions 
of  the  Irish  side  of  the  story,  resting  and  basing  my  testi- 
mony upon  the  records  of  Protestant  and  English  writers, 
and  upon  the  testimony,  which  I  have  been  so  proud  to  put 
before  you,  of  noble,  generous  American  people.  I  have  to 
apologize  for  the  dryness  of  the  subject,  and  the  imperfect 
manner  in  which  I  have  treated  it,  and  also  for  the  uncon- 
scionable length  of  time  in  which  I  have  tried  your  patience. 
In  the  next  lecture  we  shall  be  approaching  ticklish  ground  : 
■ — "  Ireland  since  the  Union ;  "  Ireland  as  she  is  to-day  ;  and 
Ireland  as,  my  heart  and  brain  tell  me,  she  shall  be  in  some 
future  day. 


FIFTH  LECTURE. 

{Deluered  in  the  Academy  of  MiLsic,  New  Torh^  Nov.  26,  1872.) 

THE    FUTURE    OF    IRELAND. 

L.\J)TES  AND  Gentlemen  :  On  this  day,  a  paragraph  in  a 
nev/spaper,  the  I^ew  Yo7^k  Trihune,  was  brought  under  my 
notice  ;  and  the  reading  of  it  caused  me  very  great  pain  and 
anguish  of  mind  ;  for  it  recorded  an  act  of  discourtesy  offered 
to  my  learned  antagonist,  Mr.  Froude,  and  supposed  to  be  of- 
fered by  Irishmen  in  Boston.  In  the  name  of  the  Irishmen  of 
America,  I  tender  to  the  learned  gentleman  my  best  apologies. 
I  beg  to  assure  him,  for  my  Irish  fellow-countrymen  in  this 
land,  that  we  are  only  too  happy  to  offer  to  him  the  courtesy 
and  i\\e  hospitality  that  Ireland  has  never  refused,  even  to 
her  enemies.  Mr.  Froude  does  not  come  among  us  as  an 
enemy  of  Ireland ;  but  he  professes  that  he  loves  the  Irish 
people  ;  and  I  am  willing  to  believe  him.  And  when  I  read 
in  the  report  of  his  last  lecture,  which  I  am  about  to  answer 
to-night,  that  he  said  that  he  "  would  yield  to  no  man  in  his 
love  for  the  Irish  people,"  I  was  reminded  of  what  O'Con- 
nell  said  to  Lord  Derby  on  a  similar  occasion.  When  the 
noble  lord  stated  in  the  English  House  of  Lords  that  he 
would  yield  to  no  man  in  his  love  for  Ireland,  the  great 
Tribune  rose  and  said :  "  Any  man  that  loves  Ireland  can- 
not be  my  enemy.  Let  our  hearts  shake  hands."  I  am 
sure,  therefore,  that  I  speak  the  sentiments  of  every  true, 
Irishman  in  America,  when  I  assure  this  learned  English 
gentleman  that,  as  long  as  he  is  in  this  country,  he  will  re* 


160  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

ceive  at  the  hands  of  the  Irish  citizens  of  America  nothing 
but  the  same  courtesy,  the  same  polite  hospitality  and  atten- 
tion, which  he  boasts  that  he  has  received  from  the  Irish 
people  in  their  native  land.  I  beg  to  assure  him  that  we, 
Irishmen,  in  America,  know  well  that  it  is  not  with  dis- 
courtesy, or  anything  approaching  to  rudeness  or  violence, 
that  the  Irish  citizens  of  America  ever  expect  to  make  their 
appeal  to  this  great  nation.  If  ever  the  reign  of  intellect 
and  of  mind  was  practically  established  in  this  world,  it  is  in 
glorious  America.  Every  man  who  seeks  the  truth,  every 
man  who  j^reaches  the  truth, — whether  it  be  religious  truth 
or  historical  truth, — will  find  an  audience  in  America.  And 
I  hope  he  never  will  find  an  Irishman  to  stand  up  and  offer 
him  discourtesy  and  violence,  because  he  speaks  what  he 
imagines  to  be  the  truth. 

So  much  being  said  in  reference  to  this  paragi-aph  to  which 
I  have  alluded,  I  now  come  to  the  last  of  Mr.  Froude's  lect- 
ures, and  to  the  last  of  my  own.  The  learned  gentleman, 
in  his  fourth  lecture,  told  the  American  people  his  view  of 
the  movement  of  1782,  and  of  the  subsequent  Irish  rebellion 
of  1798.  According  to  Mr.  Froude,  the  Irish  made  a  great 
mistake  in  1782  by  asserting  the  independence  of  the  Irish 
Parliament.  "They  abandoned,"  says  this  learned  gentle- 
man, "  the  paths  of  political  reform ;  and  they  clamored  for 
political  agitation."  Now,  political  agitation  is  one  thing, 
and  political  reform  is  another  thing.  Political  reform,  my 
friends,  means  the  correcting  of  great  abuses,  the  repealing 
of  bad  laws  and  the  passing  of  good  measures,  salutary  and 
useful,  for  the  welfare  and  Avell -being  of  the  people.  Accord- 
ing to  this  learned  gentleman,  England, — taught,  by  her  bit- 
ter American  experience,  that  coercion  v/ould  not  answ*er 
with  the  people,  and  that  it  is  impossible  to  thrust  unjust 
laws  down  the  throats  of  a  people  or  a  nation,  even  at  the 
sword's  point — according  to  him,  England  was  only  too  will- 


THE  FUTURE  OF  IRELAND,  161 

ing,  too  happy,  in  the  year  1780,  to  repeal  all  the  bad  laws 
that  had  been  passed  in  the  blind  and  bigoted  ages  that  had 
gone  by,  and  to  grant  to  Ireland  a  real  redress  of  all  her 
grievances.  But,  says  Mr.  Froude,  "  The  Irish  people 
were  foolish.  Instead  of  demanding  from  England  the  re- 
dress of  these  grievances,  they  insisted  npon  their  National 
and  Parliamentary  independence ;  and,"  he  adds, ''  they  were 
foolish  in  this ;  for  that  very  independence  led  to  interior  con- 
tention, contention  to  conspiracy,  conspiracy  to  rebellion,  re- 
bellion to  tyranny."  Now,  I  am  as  great  an  enemy  of  polit- 
ical agitation  as  Mr.  Fronde,  or  any  other  man.  I  hold,  and 
I  hold  it  by  experience,  that  political  agitation  distracts  men's 
minds  from  the  more  serious  and  the  more  necessary  occupa- 
tions of  life  ;  that  political  agitation  draws  men's  minds  away 
from  their  business,  and  from  the  sober  pursuits  of  industry  ; 
that  it  creates  animosities  and  bad  blood  between  citizens ; 
that  it  affords  an  easy  and  profitable  employment  for  worthless 
demagogues ;  and  very  often  brings  to  the  surface  the  vilest 
and  meanest  elements  of  society.  All  that  I  grant.  But,  at 
the  same  time,  I  hold  that  political  agitation  is  the  only  re- 
source left  to  a  people  who  endeavor  to  extract  good  laws 
from  an  unwilling  and  tyrannical  government.  May  I  ask 
the  learned  historian  what  were  the  wars  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  in  France,  in  Germany,  and  in  the  Netherlands  ? — 
the  wars  that  Mr.  Froude  himself  admires  so  much,  and  for 
which  he  expresses  so  much  sympathy ; — what  were  they 
but  political  agitation  taking  the  form  of  armed  revolt,  in 
order  to  extort  fcom  the  governments  of  that  time  v/hat  the 
people  considered  to  be  just  measures  of  toleration  and  lib- 
erty of  conscience  ?  With  these  wars,  that  were  waged  by 
the  people  in  armed  revolt,  against  France,  against  Spain,  in 
the  Netherlands ;  against  the  Emperor  Charles  the  Fifth,  of 
Austria  ; — with  these  Mr.  Froude  has  the  deepest  sympathy ; 
because  they  were  wars  made  by  Protestants  against  Catholia 


1613  ENGLISH  MI8BULE  IN  IRELAND, 

governmeri  ts.  The  men  who  made  these  wars  were  imiovji^- 
tors,  or  revolutionists  in  every  sense  of  the  word.  They 
wanted  to  overturn  not  only  the  altar,  but  also  the  estab- 
lished forms  of  government.  But  with  the  Irish,  who  only 
stood  in  defence  of  their  ancient  religion  and  of  their  time- 
honored  altars,  of  their  lives  and  property ; — not  of  their 
freedom — for  that  was  long  gone  ; — for  the  Irish — this 
learned  gentleman  has  not  a  word,  except  expressions  of  dis- 
dain and  disapprobation. 

And  now  we  come  to  consider  whether  Mr.  Froude  is 
right,  when  he  says  that  the  Irish  foolishly  clamored  for 
political  agitation  in  1780,  when  they  might  have  obtained 
23olitical  reform.  Now,  mark : — In  1780,  the  Irish  j^eople 
— and  mainly  the  Protestant  portion  of  the  Irish  people, — 
demanded  of  the  English  Government  the  repeal  of  certain 
laws  that  restricted  and  almost  annihilated  the  trade  and 
commerce  of  Ireland.  These  laws  had  been  passed  under 
William  III.  They  were  levelled  at  the  Irish  woollen 
trade;  they  forbade' the  exportation  of  manufactured  cloth 
from  Ireland,  except  under  a  duty  that  was  a  prohibitive 
tariff.  They  went  so  far  as  to  prohibit  the  Irish  people 
from  even  selling  their  fleeces — their  wool — to  any  foreign 
power  except  England.  England  fixed  her  own  prices ;  and 
Mr.  Froude  himself  acknowledges  that  although  the  French 
might  be  offering  three  shillings  a  pound  for  the  wool, 
Ireland  was  obliged  to  sell  it  to  the  English  merchant  at 
his  own  price.  When  the  Irish  people  demanded  the 
repeal  of  this  unjust  measure,  I  ask  you,  was  England 
willing  to  grant  it  ?  Was  England,  as  Mr.  Froude  saj^s, 
only  anxious  to  discover  the  unjust  law  in  order  to  re- 
peal it,  and  to  discover  grievances  in  order  to  redress 
them?  I  answer,  no.  England  nailed  her  colors  to  the 
mast,  and  said,  "  I  never  will  grant  the  repeal  of  the  re- 
strictive duties  upon.  Irish  trade.     Ireland  is  down,  and  I 


THE  FUTURE  OF  IRELAND.  163 

will  keep  her  do^m."  The  proof  lies  here  :  The  English 
Government  resisted  Grattan's  demand  for  the  emancipation 
of  Irish  industry,  until  Henry  Grattan  brought  50,000 
**  Volunteers ;  "  and  the  very  day  that  he  rose  in  the  Irish 
Parliament,  to  proclaim  that  Ireland  demanded  her  commer- 
cial rights  once  more,  the  Volunteers,  in  College  Green  and 
Stephen's  Green,  in  Dublin,  had  their  artillery  out,  and  had 
them  planted  before  the  door  of  the  House  of  Commons  ; 
and  around  the  mouths  of  the  guns  they  had  put  a  label — 

a  significant  label — "  Free  Trade  for  Ireland ;  or !  "     If 

England  was  so  trilling  to  redress  every  Irish  grievance — 
if  the  Irish  people  had  only  to  say,  "  Look  here,  there  is 
this  law  in  existence ;  take  it  away,  for  it  is  strangling  and 
destroying  the  commerce  of  the  country  " — if  England  was 
so  willing  to  take  away  that  law, — and  Mr.  Eroude  says  she 
was;  if  she  was  only  anxious  to  hear  where  the  defect  was 
in  order  to  remedy  it,  why,  in  the  name  of  God — why,  in 
that  day  of  1780,  did  she  hold  out  until,  at  the  very  can- 
non's mouth,  she  was  obliged  to  yield  the  commercial  inde- 
pendence of  Ireland  ?  Is  it  any  wonder  that  the  Irish 
people  thought,  with  Henr}'-  Grattan,  that,  if  every  measure 
of  reform  was  to  be  fought  for,  tliat  the  kingdom  would  be 
kept  in  a  perpetual  state  of  revolution  ?  Is  it  any  wonder 
that  men  said : — "  If  we  have  got  to  fight  for  every  act 
of  justice,  we  must  always  be  ready,  with  our  torches 
lighted  and  our  cannons  loaded  "  ?  Is  it  any  wonder  that 
the  Irish  peo})le  should  have  said,  in  that  day,  with  their 
immortal  leader  :  "  It  is  far  better  for  us  to  have  our  own 
Parliament,  free  and  independent,  to  take  up  tlie  making  of 
our  own  laws,  and  consult  for  our  interests,  and  in  peace, 
quietness,  and  harmony,  to  take  thought  for  the  wants  of 
Ireland  and  legislate  for  them "  ?  And  this  is  what  Mr; 
Eroude  calls  "clamoring  for  political  agitation."  Thus  we 
Bee,    my   friends, — (and,  remember,  tliis    evening,    fellow- 


164:  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

countrymen,  that  I  am  emphatically  and  especially  appealing 
to  America ;  that  I  expect  my  verdict  this  evening,  as  Mr. 
Fronde  got  his ;  but  it  is  not  from  Dr.  Hitchcock ;  it  is  not 
the  puny  crow  of  a  barndoor  fowl,  but  it  is  the  scream  oi 
America's  Eagle  that  I  expect  to  hear  this  evening ;) — thus 
we  see  that  the  action  of  1782,  by  which  Grattan  obtain- 
ed and  achieved  the  independence  of  the  Irish  Parlia- 
ment, did  not  originate  in  any  innate  love  of  the  Irish  for 
political  agitation,  but  in  the  action  of  the  British  Govern- 
ment, that  forced  it  upon  them,  and  gave  them  only  two 
alternatives — "Remain  subject  to  me,  to  my  Parliament; 
but  I  never  will  grant  you  an^^thing  except  at  the  cannon's 
mouth ;  or  take  your  own  liberty  and  legislate  for  your- 
selves." Oh !  Henry  Grattan !  you  were  not  a  Catholic ; 
and  yet  I,  a  Catholic  priest,  here,  to-night,  call  down  ten 
thousand  blessings  on  thy  name  and  memory ! 

It  is  true  that  that  emancipated  Parliament  of  1782 
failed  to  realize  the  hopes  of  the.  Irish  nation; — perfectly 
true!  The  Parliament  of  1782  was  a  failure.  I  grant  it. 
Mr.  Froude  says  that  that  Parliament  was  a  failure  because 
the  Irish  were  incapable  of  self-legislation.  It  is  a  serious 
charge  to  make  against  any  people,  my  friends ;  yet  I,  who 
am  not  supposed  to  be  a  ])hilosopher — and,  because  of  the 
habit  that  I  wear,  I  am  not  supposed  to  be  a  man  of  very  large 
mind, — I  stand  up  here  to-night  and  assert  my  conviction 
that  there  is  not  a  nation  nor  a  race  under  the  sun  that  is 
not  capable  of  self-legislation,  and  that  has  not  a  right  to  the 
inheritance  of  freedom.  But,  if  the  learned  gentleman 
wishes  to  know  what  was  the  i  oal  cause  of  that  failure,  I 
will  tell  him.  The  emancipated  Parliament  of  1782,  al- 
though it  inclosed  within  its  walls  such  honored  names  as 
Grattan  and  Flood,  yet  it  did  not  represent  the  Irish  nation. 
There  were  nearly  three  millions  and  a  half  of  Irishmen  in 
Ireland  at  that  day  ; — three  millions  of  Catholics,  and  half  a 


THE  FUTURE  OF  IRELAND.  165 

million  of  Protestants ;  and  the  Parliament  of  1782  only  rep- 
resented the  half  million.  Naj,  more :  examine  the  Consti- 
tution of  that  Parliament,  and  see  who  they  were  ;  see  how 
they  were  elected,  and  you  will  find  that  not  even  the  hali 
million  of  Protestants  were  fairly  represented  by  that  Par- 
liament. The  House  of  Commons  held  300  members.  Of 
these  300  there  were  only  72  elected  by  the  people ;  the  rest 
were  the  nominees  of  certain  great  lords — certain  large 
landed  i^rojDrietors.  A  man  happened  to  have  an  estate, — 
a  side  of  the  country,  which  contained  three  or  four  towns  or 
villages, — and  each  town  returned  its  member.  The  land- 
lord v/ent  in  and  said  :  "  You  will  elect  such  a  man ;  he  is 
my  nominee ; "  and  he  was  elected  at  once.  They  were 
called  "  rotten  boroughs  ;  "  they  were  called  "  nomination 
boroughs  ;  "  and  they  were  also  called  "  pocket  boroughs," 
because  my  lord  had  them  in  his  pocket.  Have  any  of  you, 
Irishmen,  who  are  here  present  to-night,  ever  travelled  from 
Dublin  to  Drogheda  ?  There  is  a  miserable  village ; — half 
a  dozen  wretched  huts ; — it  is  the  dirtiest,  filthiest  place  I 
ever  saw ;  and  that  miserable  village  returned  a  member  to 
the  Irish  Parliament !  Had  that  Parliament  of  1782  repre- 
sented the  Irish  people — [the  three  millions  of  Catholics 
had  not  as  much  as  a  vote ; — the  best  and  most  intellectual 
Catholic  in  Ireland  had  not  even  a  vote  for  a  member  of 
Parliament;] — had  that  Parliament  represented  the  Irish 
nation,  it  would  have  solved  the  problem  of  "  Home  Pule  " 
in  a  sense  favorable  to  Ireland,  and  very  unfavorable  to  the 
theories  of  Mr.  Froude. 

The  Irish  people  knew  this  well ;  and  the  moment  that  the 
Parliament  of  1782  was  declared  indeiDendent  of  the  Parlia- 
ment of  England, — was  declared  to  have  the  power  of  origi- 
nating its  own  acts,  of  legislating,  and  being  responsible  to 
no  one  except  the  King, — that  moment  the  Irish  people 
clamored  for  reform.     They  said  :  ''  Reform  yourselves  now, 


166  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

0  Parliament.  Let  the  people  in,  and  represent  them 
fairly  ;  and  you  will  make  a  grand  success  of  your  indepen- 
dence." 

The  "  Volunteers,"  to  their  honor,  cried  out  for  reform. 
In  their  first  meeting  at  Dungannon,  when  they  were  95,000 
strong,  the  one  thing  they  demanded  w^as  reform  of  the  Par- 
liament. The  "  United  Irishmen  "  who,  in  the  beginning,  were 
not  a  secret  society,  nor  a  treasonable  society,  but  open,  free, 
loyal  men,  embracing  the  first  names  and  first  characters  in 
Ireland, — the  "  United  Irishmen  "  actually  originated  as  a 
society,  embracing  the  best  intellect  in  Ireland,  for  the 
purpose  of  forcing  reform  on  the  Parliament.  It  may  be 
interesting  to  the  citizens  of  America  who  have  honored 
me  with  their  presence  this  evening;  it  may  be  interest- 
ing to  my  Irish  fellow-countrymen  to  know  what  were 
the  three  principles  upon  which  the  society  of  United  Irish- 
men was  formed.  Here  they  are  :  Pirst  of  all,  the  first  res- 
olution of  that  society  was  that  "  the  weight  of  English  in- 
fluence, in  this  Government,  and  this  country,  is  so  great  as 
to  require  cordial  union  among  all  the  people  of  Ireland  to 
maintain  that  balance  which  is  essential  to  the  preservation 
of  our  liberties  and  to  the  extension  of  our  commerce." 
Pesolution  Is^o.  2,  *'  That  the  only  constitutional  means  by 
which  this  influence  of  England  can  be  opposed  is  by  com- 
plete, cordial,  and  radical  reform  of  the  representation  of  the 
people  in  Parliament."  Pesolution  No.  3,  "  That  no  reform 
is  just  which  does  not  include  every  Irishman  of  every  re- 
ligious persuasion."  There  you  have  the  whole  programme 
of  this  formidable  society  of  the  "  United  Irishmen ;  "  and 

1  ask  you,  citizens  of  America,  is  there  anything  treasonable, 
is  there  anything  reprehensible,  is  there  anything  deserving 
of  imprisonment,  of  banishment,  or  death  in  such  a  resolu- 
tion as  this  ?  Who  opposed  and  hindered  that  reform  ? 
who  stood  between  the  Irish  people  and  their  Parliament 


THE  FUTURE  OF  IRELAND.  167 

and  said — "  No ;  there  shall  be  no  reform  ;  you  mnst  re- 
main the  representatives  of  a  faction,  and  not  of  the  nation  ; 
you  must  remain  the  corrupt  and  venal  representatives  of 
only  a  small  portion  even  of  the  Protestant  faction."  Who 
said  this  ?  The  Government  of  England.  Here  is  my 
proof.  On  the  29th  of  November,  1783,  Mr.  Flood  intro- 
duced into  the  Irish  Parliament  a  bill  of  reform.  The  mo- 
ment that  bill  was  read,  an  honorable  member  rose  up  to 
oppose  it.  That  member  was  Barry  Yelverton,  who  was 
afterwards  Lord  Avonmore.  He  was  the  Attorney-General 
of  the  Government  for  Ireland ;  and  he  gave  to  the  bill  an 
official  and  Governmental  oj^position.  The  bill  v/as  thrown 
out  by  a  majority  of  159  to  77 ;  the  159,  every  one  of  them, 
having  a  bribe  in  his  pocket.  Then,  the  Attorney-General, 
Mr.  Yelverton,  rose  up;  and  he  made  this  motion,  "that  it 
has  now  become  necessary  to  declare  that  this  House  will 
maintain  its  just  rights  and  privileges  against  all  encroach- 
ments whatsoever;" — the  "just rights  and  privileges"  being 
the  right  to  represent  a  faction,  and  exclude  from  all  repre- 
sentation five-sixths  of  the  people  of  Ireland. 

"  From  agitation,"  says  Mr.  Froude,  "  grew  conspiracy ; 
from  conspiracy,  rebellion."  By  conspiracy,  he  means  the 
society  of  "  United  Irishmen."  By  rebellion,  he  means  the 
uprising  of  '98.  Now,  in  my  last  lecture,  I  have  shown 
you,  on  the  evidence  of  such  illustrious  men  as  Sir  Ralph 
Abercrombie,  and  Sii*  John  Moore,  the  hero  of  Corunna,  that 
the  rebellion  of  '98  was,  primarily  and  originally,  the  work 
of  the  British  Government,  which  goaded  the  Irish  people 
into  revolt.  "We  have  also  seen,  a  moment  ago,  that  the 
society  of  "  United  Irishmen  "  was  not  a  conspiracy,  but  a 
public  society, — a  magnificent  union  of  the  best  intellects 
and  best  men  in  Ireland  for  a  splendid  and  patriotic  pur- 
pose, to  be  accomplished  by  fair,  loyal,  and  legitimate 
means.     But  the  principle  upon  which  the  "  United  Irish- 


168  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

men "  were  formed  was  the  principle  of  effecting  a  union 
among  all  Irishmen ;  and  this  was  enough  to  alarm  the 
Government,  whicli,  from  time  immemorial,  for  many  cen- 
turies, had  ruled  Ireland  through  division.  The  motto — 
the  word — that  Mr.  Froude  so  eloquently  used,  when  he 
eaid,  that  "  on  the  day  that  Ireland  will  be  united  she  will 
be  invincible," — ^that  was  present  in  the  mind  of  England's 
Prime  Minister,  the  celebrated  William  Pitt,  when  he  re- 
solved on  three  things:  He  resolved  first,  to  disarm  the 
"Volunteers;"  secondly,  to  force  the  "United  Irishmen"  to 
become  a  secret  society  or  conspiracy  ;  and  thirdly,  he  re- 
solved to  force  Ireland  into  a  rebellion,  that  he  might  have 
her  at  his  feet.  How  did  he  bring  these  three  things 
about  ?  Remember  that  I  am  reviewing  all  these  things  his- 
torically. I  have  no  prejudices  in  the  matter.  I  declare 
to  you,  that,  with  the  exception  of  the  momentary  ebullition 
or  boiling  up  of  the  blood  that  I  feel  in  my  chamber,  when 
preparing  these  lectures,  I  feel  nothing  but  that.  I  am  not 
like  others.  I  believe,  for  instance,  that  Mr.  Froude  has 
no  business  to  write  history,  because  he  is  a  good  philoso- 
pher. A  philosopher  is  a  man  who  endeavors  to  trace  efiects 
to  their  causes ;  who  sets  up  a  theory  and  tries  to  work  it 
out ;  and  that  is  the  last  man  in  the  world  that  ought  to 
write  history.  And  why  ?  Because  a  historian  is  supposed 
to  be  a  narrator  of  dry  facts ;  and  I  hold,  ought  not  to  deal 
in  theories  or  fancies  at  all.  I  believe  my  learned  antago- 
nist to  be  too  much  of  a  philosoj^her  to  be  a  good  historian. 
I  also  believe  that  he  is  too  much  of  a  historian  to  be  a  good 
philosopher. 

The  first  of  these  three  designs  of  William  Pitt  was  ac- 
complished in  1785.  He  increased  the  standing  army  in 
Ireland  to  15,000  men.  He  obtained,  from  the  Irish  Par- 
liament, a  grant  of  £20,000,  to  clothe  and  arm  the  militia. 
Between   the   army   on   the   one  side,  and   the  militia  on 


THE  FUTURE  OF  IRELAND,  169 

the  other,  he  took  the  *'  Volunteers "  in  the  centre,  and 
disarmed  them.  On  the  day  when  the  last  of  the  "  Volun- 
teers "  laid  down  their  muskets,  Ireland's  hopes  were  laid 
down  with  them. 

The  second  of  these  designs, — namely,  the  forcing  of  the 
**  United  Irishmen "  to  become  a  secret  conspiracy,  he 
effected  in  this  manner  : — In  February,  1793,  he  passed  two 
bills  through  Parliament,  called  the  "  Gunpowder  Bill,"  and 
the  "  Convention  Bill."  A  public  meeting  of  the  "  United 
Irishmen"  was  held  in  Dublin; — a  public  meeting, — there 
was  nothing  secret  about  it, — to  protest  against  the  inquisi- 
torial measures  of  certain  agents  of  a  secret  committee  of  the 
House  of  Lords,  in  goiug  into  people's  houses  at  any  hour 
of  the  day  or  night,  without  any  authority, — under  pretence 
that  there  was  gunpowder  concealed  in  the  house.  For  this 
meeting,  held  legally  and  constitutionally,  the  Hon.  Simon 
Butler,  who  was  president  of  the  meeting,  and  Mr.  Oliver 
Bond,  who  was  the  secretary,  were  both  imprisoned  six 
months,  and  fined  £500  each.  AVhen  this  illustrious  soci- 
ety found  that  they  were  thus  persecuted,  they  were  obliged 
to  take  refuge  in  secresy ;  and  thus  it  was  that  the  "  United 
Irishmen  "  were  forced  to  become  a  conspiracy. 

The  ftst  really  treasonable  project  that  was  ever  put  be- 
fore the  "  United  Irishmen,"  was  put  before  them  in  April, 
1794,  by  the  Rev.  William  Jackson,  a  Protestant  clergyman, 
who  came  over  commissioned  by  the  French  Convention; 
and  the  Be  v.  WilKam  Jackson,  who  was  a  true  man,  was 
accompanied  on  that  mission  by  a  certain  John  Cockayne, 
an  English  lawyer,  from  London ;  and  he  was  the  agent  of 
William  Pitt,  the  Prime  Minister  of  England.  Thus  did  the 
society  of  the  "  United  Irishmen "  become  a  secret  conspir- 
acy ;  and  this  was  the  action  of  the  English  Government. 
Before  that,  it  was  perfectly  legitimate  and  constitutional. 
Ah  !  but  it  had  an  object,  which  was  far  more  formidable  to 
8 


170  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

the  Englisli  Goveminent  than  any  commission  of  Irish  trea- 
son. The  Ensxlish  Government  is  not  afraid  of  Irish  trea- 
son ;  but  the  Enghsh  Government  trembles  with  fear  at  the 
idea  of  Irish  union.  The  "  United  Irishmen  "  were  founded 
to  promote  union  among  all  Irishmen,  of  every  religion ; 
and  the  English  Minister  had  said  in  his  own  mind :  "  Trea- 
son is  better  than  union.  I  will  force  them  to  become  a 
treasonable  conspiracy  ;  and  their  project  of  union  will  be 
broken  up."  It  is  worth  your  while,  my  American  friends, 
to  hear  what  was  the  oath  that  was  administered  by  the 
"United  Irishmen."  Here  it  is.  Let  us  suppose  that  I 
was  going  to  be  sworn  in  : — 

"I,  Thomas  Burke,  in  the  presence  of  God,  do  pledge 
myself  to  my  country,  that  I  will  use  all  my  abilities  and  in- 
fluence in  the  attainment  of  an  impartial  and  adequate  rep- 
resentation of  the  Irish  nation  in  Parliament,  and,  as  a  most 
absolute  and  immediate  necessity  for  the  attainment  of  this 
chief  good  of  Ireland,  I  will  endeavor,  as  much  as  lies  in  my 
ability,  to  forward  and  perpetuate  the  identity  of  interests, 
the  union  of  rights,  and  the  union  of  power  among  Irishmen 
of  all  religious  persuasions,  without  which  every  reform  in 
Parliament  must  be  partial,  not  national ;  inadequate  to  the 
wants,  and  wholly  and  entirely  insufficient  for  the  freedom 
and  happiness  of  this  country."  • 

This  was  the  United  Irishman's  oath.  I  protest  before 
high  Heaven  to-night,  that,  priest  as  I  am,  if  I  were  asked, 
in  1779,  to  take  that  oath,  I  would  have  taken  it  and  kept 
it.  Remember,  my  friends,  that  it  was  no  secret  oath ;  re- 
member that  it  was  no  treasonable  oath ;  remember  that  it 
was  an  oath  that  no  man  could  refuse  to  take,  unless  he  was 
a  dishonorable  man  and  a  traitor  to  his  country. 

The  founder  of  this  society  was  Theobald  Wolfe  Tone.  I 
admit  that  Mr.  Tone  was  imbued  with  French  revolutionary 
ideas;  but  he  certainly  never  attempted  to  impress  these 
views  upon  the  society  until  Mr.  William  Pitt,  the  Prime 


THE  FUTURE  OF  IRELAND.  171 

Minister  of  England,  forced  that  society  to  become  a  secret 
organization. 

The  third  object  of  the  Premier  and  the  Government, 
namely,  to  create  an  Irish  rebellion,  was  accomplished  by 
the  crnelties  and  abominations  of  the  soldiers,  who  Wure  quar- 
tered at  "  free  quarters  "  upon  the.  people,  destroying  them, 
— violating  that  most  sacred  and  inviolable  sanctuary  of 
Irish  maidenhood  and  womanhood, — burning  the  people's  vil- 
lages, plundering  their  farms,  demolishing  and  gutting  their 
houses;  until,  at  length,  they  made  life  more  intolerable 
than  death  itself;  goading  the  people,  at  the  very  bayonet's 
point,  to  rise  in  that  fatal  Rebellion  of '98. 

Thus  I  answer  Mr.  Fronde's  assertion  that  "  the  Irish  peo- 
ple left  the  i)aths  of  political  reform,  and  clamored  for  polit- 
ical agitation;  from  agitation  grew  conspiracy,  and  from 
conspiracy  grew  rebellion."  Now,  you  may  ask  mej  what 
motive  had  William  Pitt,  the  Premier  of  England,  to  do  all 
this.  What  advantage  was  it  to  him  to  have  conspiracy  and 
rebellion  in  Ireland  ?  Oh !  my  friends,  I  answer  you,  that 
William  Pitt  was  a  great  English  statesman,  and  a  great 
English  statesman,  in  those  days,  meant  a  great  enemy  to 
Ireland.  The  object  of  great  statesmanship,  from  time  to 
time,  is  the  effort  and  object  of  concentration ; — a  fatal  prin- 
cijjle, — a  fatal  principle,  whenever  it  interferes  with  the  just 
liberty,  the  time-honored  traditions,  or  the  genius  of  a  free 
jDCople.  Pitt  saw  Ireland  with  a  Parliament,  free  and  inde- 
pendent, making  her  own  laws  and  consulting  her  own  in- 
terests. He  said  to  himself:  "This  will  never  do;  this 
country  will  grow  happy  and  prosj^erous — this  country  will 
be  powerful :  and  that  will  not  subserve  my  purposes,  my 
imperial  designs.  What  do  I  care  for  Ireland  or  the  Irish  ? 
My  only  care  is  for  the  British  Empire ;  I  may  have  to  cross 
their  purposes,  and  interfere  with  their  interests  in  a  thou- 
sand ways ;  I  may  have  to  injure  them,  in  this  way  or  that ; 


172  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

but  I  cannot  do  it,  so  long  as  tliey  have  a  free  Parliamtnt." 
And  lie  made  up  his  mind  to  destroy  the  Irish  Parliament, 
and  to  cany  the  "  Act  of  Union."  He  knew  well  that,  as 
long  as  Ireland  was  happy,  peaceful,  and  prosperous,  he  never 
could  effect  that.  He  knew  well  that  it  was  only  through 
humiliation  and  blood — through  the  ruin  and  destruction  oi 
Ireland,  that  he  could  do  it ;  and,  cruel  man  as  he  was,  he 
resolved  to  plunge  the  kingdom  into  rebellion  and  bloodshed 
in  order  to  carry  out  his  own  infernal  English  State  policy. 
And  yet,  dear  friends,  especially  my  dear  American  friends, 
my  gi-and  jury, — for  I  feel  as  if  I  were  a  lawyer — pleading 
the  case  of  a  poor  defendant,  that  has  been  defendant  in 
many  a  court,  for  many  a  long  century :  tlie  plaintiff  is  a 
great,  rich,  powerful  woman  ;  the  poor  defendant  has  nothing 
to  commend  her  but  a  heart  that  has  never  yet  despaired — a 
spirit  that  never  yet  was  broken ;  and  a  loyalty  to  God  and 
to  man  that  never  yet  was  violated  by  one  act  of  treason : — 
I  ask  you,  O  grand  jury  of  America,  to  consider  how  easy  it 
was  to  conciliate  this  poor  mother  Ireland  of  mine,  and  to 
make  her  peaceful  and  happy.  Pitt  himself  had  a  proof  of 
it  in  that  very  year,  1794.  Suddenly  the  imperious  and 
magnificent  Premier  of  England  seemed  to  have  changed  his 
mind,  and  to  have  adopted  a  policy  of  conciliation  and  kind- 
ness towards  Ireland.  He  recalled  the  Irish  Lord  Lieuten- 
a,nt,  Lord  Westmoreland,  and  he  sent  to  Ireland  Earl  Eitz- 
william,  who  arrived  on  the  4th  of  January,  1795.  Lord 
Fitzwilliam  was  a  gentleman  of  liberal  mind  and  a  most  es- 
timable character.  He  felt  kindly  towards  the  Irish  people  ; 
and  before  he  left  England,  he  made  an  express  compact  with 
William  Pitt  that,  if  he  was  made  Lord  Lieutenant  of  Ire- 
land, he  would  govern  the  country  on  principles  of  concilia- 
tion and  kindness.  He  came.  He  found  in  Dublin  Castle 
a  certain  Secretary  Cooke,  a  petty  tyrant ;  and  he  found  the 
great  family  of  the  Beresfords,  who,  for  years  and  years,  had 


THE  FUTURE  OF  IRELAND.  173 

monopolized  all  the  public  offices  and  emoluments  of  the 
State,  and  held  uncontrolled  sway  over  the  destinies  of  Ire- 
land. He  dismissed  them  all, — sent  them  all  "  to  the  right 
about ; " — and  he  surrounded  himself  with  men  of  liberal 
minds  and  large,  statesmanlike  views.  He  began  by  telling 
the  Catholics  of  Ireland  that  he  would  labor  for  their  eman- 
cipation. A  sudden  peace  and  joy  spread  throughout  the 
nation.  Every  vestige  of  insubordination  and  rebellion 
seemed  to  vanish  out  of  the  Irish  mind.  The  people  were 
content  to  wait.  Every  law  was  observed.  Peace,  happi- 
ness, and  joy  were,  for  the  time  being,  the  portion  of  the 
Irish  people.  How  long  did  it  last  ?  In  an  evil  hour,  Pitt 
returned  to  his  old  designs.  Earl  Fitzwilliam  was  recalled 
on  the  25th  of  March  ;  and  Ireland  enjoyed  her  hopes  only 
for  two  short  months. 

"When  it  was  ascertained  that  Lord  Fitzwilliam  was  about 
to  be  recalled,  there  was  scarcely  a  parish  in  Ireland  that  did 
not  send  in  petitions,  resolutions,  and  prayers  to  the  English 
Government  to  leave  them  their  Lord  Lieutenant.  All  to 
no  purpose.  The  policy  v>^as  changed.  Pitt  had  made  up 
his  mind  to  carry  the  Union.  On  the  day  that  Lord  Fitz- 
william left  Dublin,  the  principal  citizens  took  the  horses 
from  his  carriage  ;  and  they  drew  the  carriage  themselves 
down  to  the  water's  side.  All  Ireland  was  in  tears.  "  The 
scene,"  says  an  historian  of  the  time,  '*  was  heart-rending  ; 
the  whole  nation  was  in  mourning."  How  easy  it  was,  my 
American  friends,  to  conciliate  these  people,  whom  two  short 
months  of  kindness  could  have  thus  changed  !  Oh  !  if  only 
the  English  Government,  the  English  Parliament,  the  Eng- 
lish people, — if  they  could  only  realize  to  themselves,  for 
ever  so  short  a  time,  the  mine  of  affection,  that  glorious 
heart,  that  splendid  gratitude  that  lies  there  in  Ireland,  but 
tc  which  they  have  never  appealed  and  never  touched ; — but 


174:  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IK  IRELAND. 

instead,  they  have  turned  the  very  honey  of  human  nature 
into  the  gall  and  bitterness  of  hatred ! 

The  rebellion  broke  out.  It  was  defeated ;  and  as  Mr. 
Froude  truly  says,  the  victors  took  away  the  old  privileges, 
and  made  the  yoke  heavier.  By  the  "  old  privileges,"  peo- 
ple of  America,  Mr.  Froude  means  the  Irish  Parliament 
that  was  taken  away.  I  hope,  citizens  of  America,  that  this 
English  gentleman,  who  has  come  here  to  get  "  a  verdict  " 
from  you,  will  be  taught  by  that  verdict  that  the  right  to 
home  legislation  is  not  a  privilege,  but  the  right  of  every 
nation  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  Then,  in  the  course  of  his 
lecture,  going  back  to  strengthen  his  argument,  he  says : — 
"  You  must  not  blame  England  for  being  so  hard  upon  you, 
Irishmen,  She  took  away  your  Parliament;  she  afflicted 
you  with  a  heavier  yoke  than  you  bore  before.  She  couldn't 
help  it ;  it  was  your  own  fault ;  what  made  you  rebel  ?  " 
This  is  the  argument  which  the  learned  gentleman  uses.  He 
says  that  the  penal  laws  would  never  have  been  established, 
never  v/ould  have  been  carried  out,  only  for  the  revolution 
of  1600  in  Ireland.  Now,  the  revolution  of  IGOO  means 
the  war  that  Hugh  O'Neill  made,  in  Ulster,  against  Queen 
Elizabeth.  And,  according  to  this  learned  historian,  the 
penal  laws  were  the  result,  the  effect,  the  consequence  of 
that  revolution.  Remember,  he  fixes  the  date  himself: — he 
says  IGOO.  Now,  my  friends,  here  is  the  record  of  history  : 
The  penal  laws  began  to  operate  in  Ireland  in  1534.  In  1537 
the  Archbishop  of  Armagh  and  Primate  of  Ireland,  who 
was  an  Englishman — his  name  was  Cromer — was  put  into 
jail  aitd  left  there  for  denying  the  supremacy  of  Henry  the 
Eighth  over  the  Church  of  God.  Passing  over  the  succeed- 
ing years  of  Henry  the  Eighth's  reign  ;  passing  over  the  en- 
actments of  Somerset,  under  Edward  the  Sixth,  we  come  to 
Elizabeth's  reign ;  and  we  find  that  she  assembled  a  Parlia- 
ment in  15G0, — forty  years  before  Mr.  Froude's  revolution. 


THE  FUTURE  OF  IRELAND.  1Y5 

Here  is  one  of  the  laws  passed  by  tliafc  Parliament :  All  of- 
ficers and  ministers,  lay  or  ecclesiastical, — that  took  iis  in, 
you  see, — were  bound  to  take  the  oath  of  supremacy,  and 
were  bound  to  swear  that  Queen  Elizabeth  was  the  Popess 
— that  she  was  the  head  of  the  Churoh ;  that  she  was  the 
successor  of  the  Apostles — that  she  was  the  representative 
of  St.  Peter,  and,,  through  him,  of  the  Eternal  Son  of  God ! 
Queen  Elizabeth  !  All  were  obliged  to  take  this  oath  under 
pain  of  forfeiture  and  total  incapacity.  Any  one  who  main- 
tained the  spiritual  supremacy, — mind,  the  spiritual  suprem- 
acy,— of  the  Pope  was  to  forfeit,  for  the  first  offence,  all 
his  estates,  real  and  personal ;  and  if  he  had  no  estate,  and 
if  he  was  not  worth  £20,  he  was  to  be  put  in  jail  for  one 
year.  For  the  second  ofience  he  was  liable  to  the  penalty  of 
"  praemunire."  And,  for  the  third  oflence,  he  was  guilty  of 
high  treason,  and  put  to  death.  These  laws  were  made,  and 
commissioners  were  appointed  to  enforce  them.  Mr.  Froude 
says  they  were  not  enforced  in  Ireland.  But  we  actually 
have  the  acts  of  Elizabeth's  Parliament,  appointing  magis- 
trates and  officers  to  go  out  and  enforce  these  laws.  And 
these  laws  were  made  forty  years  before  the  revolution 
which  Mr.  Froude  alludes  to  as  the  revolution  of  1600.  How, 
then,  can  that  gentleman  ask  us  to  regard  the  penal  laws  as 
the  efifect  of  that  revolution  ?  In  my  philosophy,  and,  I  be- 
lieve, in  that  of  the  citizens  of  America,  the  effect  gener- 
ally follows  the  cause;  but  the  English  philosophical  his- 
torian puts  the  efiect  forty  years  ahead  of  the  cause.  That 
is,  as  we  say  in  Ireland,  "  putting  the  cai't  before  the  horse." 
But,  Mr.  Froude  told  us,  if  you  remember, — in  his  sec- 
ond lecture,  if  you  have  read  it, — that  tlie  penal  laws  of 
Elizabeth  were  occasioned  by  the  political  necessity  of  her 
'situation.  Here  is  his  argument  as  he  himself  puts  it.  He 
says  : — "  Elizabeth  could  not  afford  to  let  Ireland  be  Catho- 
lic ;  because  if  Ireland  were  Catholic,  Ireland  would  be  hos~ 


176  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

tile  to  Elizabeth."  I  may  tell  you  now  (I  hope  the  ladies 
who  are  here  will  excuse  me  for  mentioning  such  a  thing), 
that  Queen  Elizabeth  was  not  a  legitimate  child.  Her  name, 
in  common  parlance,  is  too  vile  for  me  to  utter,  or  for  the 
ladies  here  to  hear.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  Elizabeth's  mother 
was  not  Elizabeth's  father's  wife.  The  Queen  of  England 
knew  the  ancient  abhorrence  that  Ireland  had  for  a  base- 
born  child.  She  knew  that  abhorrence  grew  out  of  Ireland's 
Catholicity  ;  and  therefore  she  could  not  allow  Ireland  to  re- 
main Catholic  (says  Mr.  Froude),  because  Ireland  would  be 
hostile  to  her  if  Ireland  remained  Catholic.  The  only  way 
in  which  tliis  amiable  Queen  could  root  out  the  Catholics  of 
Ireland  was  by  penal  laws  ;  making  it  a  felony  for  any  Irish- 
man to  remain  in  Ireland  a  Catholic.  Therefore,  the  English 
historian  says :  that  "  she  passed  these  laws  because  she 
could  not  help  herself;  "  and  that  she  was  "  coerced  to  do  so 
by  the  necessity  of  her  situation."  Now,  I  argue  from  this 
very  argument  of  Mr.  Froude  himself,  that  if  Elizabeth,  as 
he  states  in  his  second  lecture,  was  obliged  to  pass  these 
penal  laws,  whether  she  would  or  not,  why  does  he  turn 
round  and  say  that  those  penal  laws  were  the  effect  of  Hugh 
O'Neill's  revolution  ?  If  they  were  the  result  of  Elizabeth's 
necessity,  then  they  were  not  the  result  of  the  immortal 
Hugh  O'Neill's  brave  efforts. 

His  next  assertion,  ray  friends,  is  that,  after  the  American 
war,  England  was  only  too  well  disposed  to  do  justice  to  Ire- 
land ;  and  the  proof  lies  here  :  He  says  that  the  laws  against 
Catholics  were  almost  repealed  before  1798.  Yery  well.  I 
ask  you,  dear  friends,  to  reflect  upon  what  these  large  meas. 
ures  of  indulgence  to  the  Catholics  were  of  which  Mr. 
Froude  speaks.  Here  they  are:  In  the  year  1771,  Parlia- 
ment passed  an  act,  to  enable  Catholics  to  take  a  long  lease 
of  fifty  acres  of  bog.  My  American  friends,  you  may  not  un- 
derstand the  word  bog.     We  Irish  understand  it.     It  means  • 


THE  FUTURE  OF  mELAND.  17  7 

a  marsh  wliicli  is  almost  irreclaimable ;  Y/hicli  you  m-ay 
drain  and  drain  until  doomsday,  and  it  Aviil  still  remain  tlit 
Oiiginal  marsh.  You  may  sink  a  fortune  in  it,  in  arterial 
drainage,  in  "  top-dressing,"  as  Ave  ca,ll  it  in  Ireland  ;  and,  if 
y  ou  let  it  alone  for  a  couple  of  years,  and  then  come  back  and 
look  at  it,  it  has  asserted  itself,  and  is  a  bog  once  more. 
However,  my  friends,  the  Parliament  was  kinder  than  you 
imagine,  for,  while  they  granted  to  the  Catholic  power  to 
take  a  long  lease  of  fifty  acres  of  bog,  they  also  stipulated, 
that  if  the  bog  was  too  deep  for  a  foundation,  he  might  take 
half  an  acre  of  arable  land  upon  which  to  build  a  house. 
Half  an  acre  !  For  the  life  of  him,  not  more  than  half  an 
acre.  However,  this  holding,  such  as  it  was,  should  not  be 
within  a  mile  of  any  city  or  town.  Oh,  no  !  And  mark 
this  !  If  half  the  bog  y/ere  not  reclaimed,  that  is  five-and- 
twenty  acres,  within  twenty-one  years,  the  lease  was  forfeited. 
Well,  my  friends,  the  Scriptures  tell  us  that  King  Pharaoh, 
of  Egypt,  was  very  cruel  to  the  Hebrews,  because  he  ordered 
them  to  make  bricks  without  straw ;  but  here  is  an  order  to 
the  unfortunate  Irishman  to  reclaim  twenty-five  acres  of  bog, 
or  else  give  up  the  lease.  Now,  beggarly  as  that  concession 
was,  you  will  be  astonished  to  hear  that  the  very  Parliament 
that  passed  it  was  so  much  afraid  of  the  Protestant  Ascend- 
ancy in  Ireland,  that  in  order  to  conciliate  them  for  the  slight 
concession,  they  passed  another  bill  gi-anting  £10  a  year,  in 
addition  to  £30  already  ofi'ered,  for  every  "  Popish  "  Priest 
duly  converted  to  the  Protestant  religion ! 

In  October,  1777,  the  news  reached  England  that  General 
Burgoyne  had  surrendered  to  the  American  General  Gates. 
The  moment  that  news  reached  home.  Lord  North,  v/ho  was 
then  Prime  Minister  of  England,  immediately  cried  out  and 
expressed  an  ardent  desire  to  relax  the  penal  laws  on  Catho- 
lics. In  January,  1778,  the  folio v/ing  year,  the  indepen- 
dence of  America  was  acknowledged  by  glorious  France. 
8* 


178  ENGLISH  MISRULE  JJV  IRELAND. 

The  moment  that  piece  of  news  reached  England,  the  English 
Parliament  at  once  passed  a  bill  for  the  relaxation  of  the 
laws  on  the  Catholics.  In  May  of  the  same  year  the  Irish 
Parliament  passed  a  bill, — now  mark, — to  enable  Catholics 
to  lease  land — to  take  a  lease  for  999  years.  So  it  seems 
we  were  to  get  out  of  the  bog  at  last.  They  also,  in  that 
year,  repealed  the  unnatural  penal  laws  which  altered  the 
succession  in  favor  of  the  child  that  became  Protestant,  and 
gave  him  his  father's  property ;  also  repealing  the  law  for 
the  i^rosecution  of  priests,  and  for  the  imprisonment  of 
*'  Popish  "  schoolmasters.  In  the  year  1793,  they  gave  back 
to  the  Catholics  the  power  of  electing  Members  cf  Parlia- 
ment— the  2)0^ver  of  voting ;  and  they  also  gave  them  the 
right  to  certain  commissions  in  the  army.  That  is,  posi- 
tively, all  that  we  got.  And  that  is  what  Mr.  Froude  calls 
almost  a  total  repeal  of  the  laws  against  Catholics.  We 
could  not  go  into  Parliament;  we  could  not  go  on  the 
bench;  we  could  not  be  magistrates;  we  were  still  the 
"''  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  water ; "  and  this  mild 
and  benign  Englishman  comes  and  says :  ''  Why,  you  fools, 
you  were  almost  free  !  "  O  people  of  America !  if  this  be 
Mr.  Fronde's  notion  of  civil  and  religious  freedom,  I  appeal 
to  you,  for  Ireland,  nob  to  give  him  the  verdict. 

"  The  insurrection  of  '98,"  continues  the  learned  gentle- 
man, "  threw  Ireland  back  into  a  condition  of  confusion  and 
misery,  from  which  she  was  partially  delivered  by  the  Act 
of  Union."  The  first  part  of  that  proposition  I  admit ; 
the  second  I  emphatically  deny.  I  admit  that  the  unsuc- 
cessful rebellion  of  '98  threw  Ireland  back  into  a  state  of 
misery.  Unsuccessful  rebellion  is  one  of  the  greatest  calami- 
ties that  can  befall  a  nation ;  and  the  sooner  Irishmen  and 
Irish  j^atriots  understand  this,  the  better  it  will  be  for  them 
and  their  country.  But  I  emphatically  deny  that  the  Act 
of  Union  was  any  remedy  for  these  miseries ;   that  it  was 


THE  FUTURE  OF  IRELAND.  1Y9 

any  healing  whatever  for  the  wounds  of  Ireland;  that  it 
was  anything  in  the  shape  of  a  benefit  or  a  blessing.  I 
assert  that  the  Union  of  1800,  by  which  Ireland  lost  her 
Parliainent,  was  a  pure  curse  for  Ireland,  from,  that  day  to 
this,  and  nothing  else  ;  and  that  it  is  an  evil  which  must 
be  remedied  if  the  grievances  of  Ireland  are  ever  to  be 
redressed. 

I  need  not  dwell  upon  the  wholesale  bribery  and  cor- 
ruption by  which  the  infernal  Castlereagh,  the  political 
apostate,  carried  that  detestable  Act  of  Union.  Mr.  Froude 
has  had  the  good  taste  to  pass  by  the  dirty  subject  without 
touching  it,  and  I  think  I  can  do  nothing  better. 

He  says: — "It  was  expected  that  whatever  grievances 
Ireland  complained  of  would  be  removed  by  legislation  after 
the  Act  of  Union."  It  was  expected,  it  is  quite  true. 
Even  the  Catholics  expected  something.  They  were  prom- 
ised, in  writing,  by  Lord  Cornwallis,  that  Catholic  Emanci- 
pation should  be  given  them  if  they  would  consent  to  the 
Union.  Pitt  himself  pledged  himself,  through  his  Lord 
Lieutenant,  that  he  would  never  take  office  and  that  he 
would  never  administer  or  serve  in  the  Government  unless 
Catholic  Emancipation  was  made  a  Cabinet  measure.  Ihe 
honor  of  Pitt  was  engaged ;  the  honor  of  England  was  en- 
gaged ;  the  honor  of  the  brave,  though,  in  America,  unfor- 
tunate soldier,  Cornwallis,  was  engaged.  But  the  wicked 
act  was  accomplished ;  and,  then,  the  Catholics  of  Ireland 
were  left  to  sing  Tom  Moore's  song — "  I'd  mourn  the  hopes 
that  leave  me."  They  were  left  to  meditate  in  bitterness 
of  spirit  upon  the  nature  of  English  faith. 

ISTow,  let  me  introduce  an  honored  name  that  I  shall  re- 
turn to  by  and  by.  A£  that  time  the  ParKament  of  Ireland 
was  bribed  with  money  and  with  titles,  and  the  Catholic 
people  of  Ireland  were  bribed  by  promised  emancipation, 
if  they  would  sanction  the    Union.      Then  it  was  that  a 


180  ENOLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

young  man  appeared  in  Dublin,  speaking  for  the  first  time 
against  the  Union,  in  the  name  of  the  Catholics  of  Ireland ; 
and  that  young  man  was  the  glorious  Daniel  O'Connell. 
Two  or  three  of  the  Bishops  gave  a  kmd  of  tacit,  negative 
assent  to  the  measure,  in  the  hope  of  getting  Catholic  Eman- 
cipation. I  need  hardly  tell  you,  my  friends,  that  the 
Catholic  lords  of  the  Pale  were  only  too  willing  to  pase 
any  measure  that  the  English  Government  would  require. 
O'Connell  appeared  before  the  Catholic  Committee  in  Dub- 
lin, and  here  are  his  words, — remember  that  they  are  the 
words  of  the  Catholics,  of  the  people,  of  Ireland: — "Sir," 
he  said,  "it  is  my  sentiment,  and  I  am  satisfied  it  is  the 
sentiment  not  only  of  every  gentleman  that  hears  me,  but 
of  the  Catholic  people  of  Ireland,  that  they  are  opposed  to 
this  injurious,  insulting,  and  hated  measure  of  union.  And 
if  its  rejection  has  to  bring  upon  us  the  renewal  of  the 
penal  laws,  we  would  boldly  meet  the  proscription  and  op- 
pression, which  have  been  the  testimony  of  our  virtue,  and 
throw  oui-selves  once  more  on  the  mercy  of  our  Protestant 
brethren,  sooner  than  give  our  assent  to  the  political  murder 
of  our  country."  "  I  know,"  he  says,  "  I  do  know  that, 
although  exclusive  advantages  may  be  ambiguously  held 
forth  to  the  Irish  Catholic,  to  seduce  him  from  the  sacred 
duty  which  he  owes  to  his  country,  yet  I  know  that  the 
Catholics  of  Ireland  will  still  remember  that  they  have  a 
country ;  and  they  will  never  accept  of  any  advantage  as  a 
sect  which  would  debase  and  destroy  them  as  a  people." 
Shade  of  the  great  departed,  you  never  uttered  truer  words. 
Shade  of  the  great  O'Connell,  every  true  Irishman,  priest 
and  layman,  subscribes  to  these  glorious  sentiments,  wher- 
ever that  Irishman  is  to  be  found. 

Now  Mr.  Froude  goes  on,  in  an  innocent  sort  of  way. 
He  says ;  "  It  is  a  strange  thing  that,  after  the  Union  was 
passed,  the  people  of  Ireland  were  still  grumbling  and  com- 


THE  FUTURE  OF  IRELAND.  181 

plaining  ;  yet  tlaey  had  no  foundation  for  their  comj^laints ; 
they  were  not  treated  nnjustly."  These  are  his  words. 
Good  God !  people  of  America,  what  idea  can  this  gentle- 
man have  in  this  ?  What  did  this  Union,  which  he  admire? 
so  much,  and  which  he  declares  that  England  will  maintain, 
— what  did  it  bring  to  Ireland  ?  Y/hat  gain  did  it  bring  to 
Ireland,  and  what  loss  did  it  inflict  on  her?  I  answer, 
from  history.  The  gain  of  the  Union  to  Ireland  was  simpl} 
nothing, — absolutely  nothing; — and  I  ask  you  to  consider 
two  or  three  of  the  losses. 

First  of  all,  then,  remember,  my  friends,  that  Ireland, 
before  the  Union,  had  her  own  National  Debt,  as  she  had 
her  own  military  establishment.  She  was  a  nation.  The 
National  Debt  of  Ireland,  in  the  year  1793,  did  not  amount 
to  three  millions  of  money.  In  the  year  1800,  the  year  of 
the  Union,  the  National  Debt  of  Ireland  amounted  ta 
twenty-eight  millions  of  money.  They  increased  it  ninefold 
in  six  years.  How?  I  will  tell  you.  England  had,  in 
Ireland,  for  her  own  purposes,  at  the  time  of  the  Union, 
126,500  soldiers.  Pretty  tough  business,  that,  of  keeping 
Ireland  down  in  these  days !  She  made  Ireland  pay  for 
every  man  of  them.  She  did  not  pay  a  penny  of  her  own 
money  for  them.  In  order  to  carry  the  Union,  England 
spent  enormous  sums  of  money  for  bribes  to  spies  and  in- 
formers and  to  Members  of  Parliament.  She  took  every 
penny  of  this  money  out  of  the  Irish  treasury.  There  were 
eighty-four  rotten  boroughs  disfranchised  at  the  time  of 
the  Union ;  and  England  paid  to  those  who  owned  those 
boroughs,  or  who  had  the  nomination  of  them, — she  actually 
paid  them  one  million  two  hundred  thousand  pounds  ster- 
ling for  their  loss ;  the  loss  being  in  losing  the  nomination 
boroughs,  the  loss  by  the  proprietor  of  the  corrupt  influence 
in  returning  these  members  to  Parliament.  Ireland  was 
made  to  pay  this  money.     O'Connell,  speaking  on  this  sub 


1S2  ENOLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

ject,  some  years  later,  says  : — "  Really,  it  was  strange  that 
Ireland  was  not  asked  to  pay  for  the  knife  with  which, 
twenty- two  years  later,  Castlereagh  cut  his  throat ! ' ' 

But  if  the  debt  of  Ireland  was  swollen  from  three  millions 
before  the  Union,  to  twenty-eight  millions,  I  ask  you  to 
consider  what  followed.  We  now  come  to  the  period  after 
the  Union.  Mark,  my  friends  !  In  January,  1801, — yon 
may  say  the  year  of  the  Union, — the  debt  of  England  was 
four  hundred  and  fifty  millions  and  a  half  pounds  sterling ; 
and  to  pay  that  debt  they  required  £17,708,800;  conse- 
quently they  had  to  raise  by  taxation,  eighteen  millions,  to 
pay  the  interest  on  the  debt  of  four  hundred  and  fifty  mil- 
lions in  that  year.  Such  was  the  condition  of  England.  In 
the  year  1817,  sixteen  years  after,  the  same  debt  of  England 
had  risen  from  four  hundred  and  fifty  millions  to  seven 
hundred  and  thirty-five  millions, — nearly  double  ;  and  they 
had  an  annual  charge  of  twenty-eight  millions  odd  to  pay. 
So,  you  see,  they  doubled  their  national'debt  in  the  sixteen 
years  during  which  Pitt  had  waged  war  with  Napoleon. 
They  were  obliged  to  subsidize  and  to  pay  Germans,  Rus- 
sians, and  all  sorts  of  people  to  fight  against  France.  At 
one  time  William  Pitt  was  supporting  the  whole  Austrian 
army.  The  Austrians  had  the  men,  but  no  money.  Now, 
mark  this!  In  Ireland,  the  debt,  in  1801,  was  twenty- 
eight  and  one-half  millions ;  and,  consequently,  the  annual 
taxation  was  one  million  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
pounds.  In  the  year  1817,  the  same  Irish  debt,  which,  six- 
teen years  before,  was  only  twenty -eight  millions,  was  now 
£112,704,000  sterling,  and  the  taxes  amounted  to  four  mih 
lions  one  hundred  and  four  thousand  pounds  sterling.  In 
other  words,  in  sixteen  years  the  debt  of  England  was 
doubled ;  but  the  debt  of  Ireland  was  made  four  times  as 
much  as  it  was  in  the  year  in  which  the  Act  of  Union  was 
passed.     You  may  ask  me  how  did  that  happen  ?     It  hap- 


THE  FUTURE  OF  IRELAND.  1S3 

pened  from  tlie  very  fact  that,  being  united  to  England, 
having  lost  our  Parliament,  the  English  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer  took  and  kept  the  money  and  the  Irish  ac- 
counts,— kept  the  books.  Ireland  lost  the  privilege  of  keep- 
ing her  own  accounts.  And  this  is  the  account  he  brought 
against  Ireland  in  1817. 

Ireland  was  so  lightly  burdened  with  debt,  at  the  time  of 
the  Union,  as  compared  with  England,  that  the  English  did 
not  ask  us,  when  they  united  our  Parliament  to  their  own, 
— they  did  not  presume  to  ask  us,  they  had  not  the  pre- 
sumption to  ask  us, — to  take  share  and  share  alike  in  the 
taxes.  Why  should  they  ?  We  only  owed  twenty  millions 
and  they  owed  four  hundred  and  fifty  millions.  Why 
should  we  be  asked  to  pay  the  interest  on  their  debt  ? 
They  were  rich  and  could  bear  that  taxation  ;  Ireland  was 
poor,  and  she  could  not  bear  it.  Ireland  was,  consequently, 
much  more  lightly  taxed  than  England.  It  was  very  much 
easier  to  pay  interest  on  twenty  millions  of  pounds  than  on 
four  hundred  and  fifty  millions.  But  there  was  an  agreement 
made  by  Castlereagh  with  the  Irish  Parliament.  It  was 
this.  He  said: — "That  if  the  Irish  national  debt  ever 
comes  up  to  one-seventh  of  the  national  debt  of  England, 
then  we  will  throw  it  all  in  together  and  tax  the  people 
share  and  share  alike."  The  object  of  running  up  the  Irish 
debt  was  to  bring  it  up  within  one-seventh  of  the  English 
debt.  This  they  accomplished  in  1817.  Then  the  Irish 
and  the  English  were  taxed  indiscriminately,  and  they  all 
alike  were  obliged  to  pay  the  taxes  for  the  interest  on  the 
four  hundred  and  fifty  millions  of  debt  that  the  Crown 
of  England  had  incurred,  before  the  Union  at  all.  And 
the  Irish,  he  says,  were  not  unjustly  treated  !  "  Ah,  but," 
says  Mr.  Froude,  '*  consider  the  advantages  of  the  Union  ! 
You  have  the  same  commercial  privileges  that  the  English 


184  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

had."     To  this,  I  answer,  in  the  words  of  the  illustrious, 
the  honest,  the  high-minded  John  Mi.tchel : — 

"  It  is  true,"  (says  Mr.  Mitchel,)  "  that  the  laws  regulat- 
ing trade  are  the  same  in  the  two  islands.  Ireland  may 
export  flax  and  woollen  cloths  to  England ;  she  may  import 
her  own  tea  from  China  and  sugar  from  Barbadoes;  the 
laws  which  made  these  acts  penal  offences  no  longer  exist ; 
and  why?  Because  they  are  no  longer  needed.  By  the 
operation  of  these  old  laws  Ireland  was  utterly  ruined. 
England  has  the  commercial  marine  ;  Ireland  has  it  to 
create.  England  has  the  manufacturing  machinery  and 
skill  of  which  Ireland  was  deprived  by  express  laws  made 
for  that  purpose.  England  has  the  current  of  trade  setting 
strongly  in  her  own  channels,  while  Ireland  is  left  dry.  To 
create  or  recover,  at  this  day,  the  great  industrial  and  com- 
mercial resources,  and  that  in  the  face  of  wealthy  rivals  tliat 
are  already  in  full  possession, — is  manifestly  imjoossible 
without  one  or  the  other  of  these  two  conditions,  namely — ■ 
an  immense  command  of  capital,  or  efi'ectual  protective 
duties.  But,  b}'"  the  Union,  our  capital  was  drawn  away  to 
England  ;  and  by  the  Union  we  were  deprived  of  the  power 
of  imposing  protective  duties." 

It  was  to  this  very  end  that  the  Union  was  forced  upon 
Ireland  through  intolerance  of  Irish  prosperity.  "  Don't 
unite  with  us,  sir,"  says  the  honest  old  man.  Dr.  Samuel 
Johnson,  when  addressed  on  the  subject  of  union  in  his  day. 
"  Don't  unite  with  us,  sir ;  we  shall  rob  you !  "  In  the 
very  first  year  after  the  Union  was  passed,  Mr.  Foster 
stated  in  the  English  House  of  Parliament,  that  there  was  a 
falling  off  in  the  linen  trade  of  Ireland  of  five  millions  less 
of  yards  exported.  The  same  gentleman,  three  years  later, 
stated  that  in  1800, — the  year  of  the  Union, — the  net 
produce  of  the  Irish  revenue  was  £2,800,000,  while  the 
debt  was  only  £25,000,000.  Three  years  later,  after  three 
years'  experience  of  the  Union,  the  debt  had  increased  to 
£53,000,000,  and  the  revenue  had  diminished  by  £11,000. 


THE  FUTURE  OF  IRELAND.  185 

Ireland  was  deserted.  That  absenteeism,  which  was  the 
curse  of  Ireland  in  the  days  of  Swift,  had  so  increased  by 
the  Union,  that  Dublin  became  almost  a  deserted  city,  and 
all  the  cities  in  Ireland  were  as  places  in  the  wilderness 
At  this  very  day,  in  Dublin,  the  Duke  of  Leinster's  city 
palace  is  turned  into  a  museum  of  Irish  industry.  Powers- 
court  House,  in  Dame  Street,  has  become  a  draper's  shop  ; 
Tyrone  House  is  a  school-house;  the  house  of  the  Earl  of 
Bective  was  pulled  down  a  few  years  ago,  to  build  up  a 
Scotch  Presbyterian  Meeting-House  in  its  place.  Charle- 
mont  House, — Lord  Charlemont's  residence, — was  sold 
about  six  months  before  I  came  to  America ;  and  it  is  now 
the  head  office  of  the  Board  of  Works ;  Aldborough  House 
is  a  barrack ;  Belvidere  House  is  a  convent.  So,  fashion, 
trade,  commercial  activity,  intellectual  enterjjrise,  political 
interest,  everything  has  gone  to  London ;  and  Ireland  may 
fold  her  hands,  and  sigh  over  the  ruin  that  is  left  her 
now.  And  that  is  the  result  of  the  Union.  The  criimbling 
Liberties  of  Dublin  attest  the  decay  and  ruin  of  the  trade  of 
Ireland ;  the  forsaken  harbors  of  Limerick  and  Gahvay  tell 
of  the  destruction  of  her  commerce ;  the  palaces  of  Dublin, 
abandoned  tc  decay,  announce  that  she  is  no  longer  the  resi- 
dence of  her  nobility ;  the  forlorn  custom-houses  tell  of  her 
income  transferred  elsewhere.  What  do  we  get  in  return 
for  all  this  ?  Absolutely  nothing.  Every  Irish  question 
goes  now  to  London  to  be  debated  ;  and  the  moment  an 
Irish  member  stands  up  in  the  House,  the  first  thing  he 
may  expect  is  to  be  coughed  down,  sneered  down,  or  crowed 
down — unless,  indeed,  he  has  the  lungs  of  an  O'Connell  to 
turn  upon  them,  like  an  African  lion,  and,  with  a  roar,  put 
down  their  beastly  bellowing. 

Pitt  promised  Emancipation.  Six  months  after  the 
Union  was  passed,  he  retired  from  office,  on  the  pretence, 
indeed,  that  the  King  would  not  grant  Emancipation,  and 


186  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

would  not  keep  his  word.  But  it  is  well  known  that  the 
true  r(  ason  why  Pitt  retired  was  that  his  Continental  policy- 
had  failed.  The  people  of  England  were  tired  of  his  wars, 
and  were  clamoring  for  peace.  Pitt  was  too  proud  a  man  to 
sign  even  a  temporary  peace  with  Prance  ;  and  he  retired  in 
sullen  pride  and  disgust.  He  retired  under  the  pretext 
that  he  would  not  be  allowed  to  carry  Catholic  Emancipa- 
tion. Some  time  later,  after  the  Addington  Administration 
was  broken  up,  Mr.  Pitt  returned  again,  the  second  time,  to 
be  the  Premier  of  England.  Not  one  word  escaped  his  lips 
about  Catholic  Emancipation ;  and  he  resisted  it  until  his 
death.  He  was  as  great  an  enemy  to  the  Catholics  of 
Ireland  as  ever  poor,  old,  foolish,  mad  George  the  Third 
was.  And  it  was  only  after  twenty-nine  years  of  heroic 
effort,  that  the  great  O'Connell  rallied  the  Irish  nation,  and 
succeeded  for  a  time  in  uniting  all  the  Catholics  of  Ireland 
as  one  man,  as  well  as  a  great  number  of  our  noble-hearted 
Protestant  fellow-Irishmen.  And  when  O'Connell  came, 
and  knocked  at  the  doors  of  the  British  Parliament,  with 
the  hand  of  an  united  Irish  people, — when  he  spoke  with  the 
voice  of  eight  millions, — then,  and  only  then — even  as  the 
walls  of  Jericho  crumbled  at  the  sound  of  Joshua's  trumpet, 
— so  did  the  old,  bigoted  threshold  of  the  British  House  of 
Commons  tremble,  while  its  doors  burst  open  and  let  in  the 
gigantic  Irishman  that  represented  eight  millions  of  the 
people  of  Ireland.  The  English  historian  cannot  say  that 
England  granted  Catholic  Emancipation  willingly.  She 
granted  it  as  a  man  would  yield  up  a  bad  tooth  to  a  dentist. 
O'Connell  put  the  forceps  into  that  false  old  mouth.  The 
old  tyrant  wriggled  and  groaned.  The  bigoted  j^rofligate 
who  then  disgraced  England's  crown,  shed  his  crocodile 
tears  over  the  bill.  The  eyes  that  were  never  known  to 
weep  over  the  ruin  of  female  virtue, — the  face  that  never  was 
known  to  change  color  in  the  presence  of  any  vile  deed  or 


THE  FUTURE  OF  IRELAND.  187 

accusation  of  vice, — that  face  grew  pale  ;  and  George  the 
Fourth  wept  for  sorrow  when  he  had  to  sign  the  bill.  The 
man  who  had  conquered  Napoleon  upon  the  field  of  AVater- 
loo  ;  the  man  who  was  declared  to  be  the  invincible  victor, 
and  the  greatest  of  warriors, — stood  there  with  that  bill  in 
his  hand,  and  said  to  the  King  of  England :  "I  would  not 
grant  it,  your  Majesty,  any  more  than  you  :  but  it  is  forced 
from  you  and  me.  You  must  either  sign  that  paper,  or  pre- 
pare for  civil  war  and  revolution  in  Ireland."  I  regret  to 
be  obliged  to  say  it,  but  really,  my  friends,  the  history  of  my 
native  land  proves  to  me  that  England  never  granted  any- 
thing from  love  or  through  a  sense  of  justice,  or  from  any 
other  motive  than  from  a  craven  fear  of  civil  war,  or  of 
some  serious  inconvenience  to  herself. 

Now,  having  arrived  at  this  point,  Mr.  Froude  glances, 
I  must  say  in  a  magnificently  masterly  manner,  over  the 
great  questions  that  have  afiected  Ireland  since  the  day 
Emancipation  was  passed.  He  speaks  words  of  most  elo- 
quent compassion  over  the  terrible  visitation  of  '46  and  '47, 
— words  the  reading  of  which  brought  tears  to  my  eyes  ; 
and  for  the  words  of  compassion  that  he  gave  to  the  people^ 
whose  sufferings  I  vvitnessed,  I  prayed  to  God  to  bless  him 
and  reward  him.  He  speaks  v/ords  of  generous,  enlightened, 
and  statesmanlike  sympathy  with  the  tenant-farmers  and  the 
peasants  of  Ireland  :  and  for  these  words,  Mr.  Froude,  if  you 
were  an  Englishman  ten  thousand  times  over,  I  love  you. 
He  does  not  attempt  to  speak  of  the  future  of  Ireland. 
Perhaps  it  is  a  dangerous  thing  for  me  to  attempt ;  yet  I 
suppose  that  all  that  we  have  been  discussing  in  tlie  past 
must  have  some  reference  to  the  future  ;  for  surely  the  ver- 
dict that  Mr.  Froude  looks  for  is  not  a  mere  verdict  of  abso- 
lution for  past  iniquities.  He  has  come  here, — though  he  is 
not  a  Catholic — he  has  come  to  America  like  a  man  going  to 
confession.     He  has  cried  out  loudly  and  generously,  "  We 


188  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

have  sinned,  we  have  sinned,  we  have  grievously  sinned  ;  " — 
and  the  verdict  which  he  calls  for  must  surely  regard  the 
future  more  than  the  past.  For  how,  in  the  name  of  com- 
mon sense,  can  this  great  historian,  or  any  man,  ask  for  a 
verdict  justifying  the  rule  of  iniquity,  the  heart-rending 
record  of  cruelty,  injustice,  fraud,  robbery,  bloodshed,  and 
wrong  which  we  have  been  contemplating  in  company  with 
Mr.  Froude?  It  must  be  for  the  future.  What  is  that 
future  ?  Well,  my  friends,- — first  of  all  my  American  grand 
jury, — you  must  remember  that  I  am  only  a  monk  and  not 
a  man  of  the  world ;  I  do  not  understand  much  about  these 
things.  There  are  wiser  heads  than  mine  ;  and  I  will  give 
you  their  opinions.  There  is  one  class  of  men  who  love 
Ireland — and  I  will  only  speak  of  those  who  love  Ireland — ■ 
who  love  her  sincerely  ; — there  is  one  class  of  men  who  love 
Ireland,  and  who  think,  in  their  love  for  Ireland,  that  the 
future  of  Ireland  is  to  be  wrought  out  by  insurrection, 
rising  in  arms  against  the  power  which  holds  Ireland  en- 
slaved, if  you  will.  Well,  if  the  history  which  Mr.  Froude 
has  been  just  telling  us,  and  which  I  have  endeavored  to 
review  for  you — if  it  teaches  us  anything  as  Irishmen,  it 
teaches  us  that  there  is  no  use  in  appealing  to  the  sword  or 
to  armed  insurrection  for  Ireland.  Mr.  Froude  says  that  we 
will  only  succeed  when  the  Irish  people  have  two  things 
they  do  not  seem  to  have  now,  namely, — union  as  one  man, 
and  a  determination  not  to  sheath  that  sword  until  the  work 
is  done.  I  know  that  I  would  earn  louder  plaudits,  citi- 
zens of  America,  and  speak  more  popular  language  to  the 
ears  of  my  auditors,  if  I  declared  my  adhesion  to  this  class 
of  Irishmen.  But  there  is  not  living  a  man  that  loves  Ire- 
land more  dearly  than  I  do.  There  are  those  who  may  love 
her  more  effectively  and  serve  her  with  greater  distinction — ■ 
but  no  man  loves  Ireland  more  tenderly  and  more  sincerely 
than  I  do.     I  prize,  citizens  of  America,  the  good- will  of  my 


THE  FUTURE  OF  IRELAND.  189 

fellow-Irislimen ;  I  prize  it  next  to  the  grace  of  God.  I 
also  prize  the  popularity  which,  however  unworthily,  I  pos- 
sess with  them  ;  but  T  tell  you  American  citizens,  that  for  all 
that  popularity,  for  all  that  good- will,  I  would  not  compro- 
mise one  iota  of  my  convictions,  nor  would  I  state  what  I 
do  not  believe  to  be  true.  I  do  not  believe  in  insurrection- 
ary movements  in  a  country  so  divided  as  Ireland. 

There  is  au other  class  of  Irishmen  who  hold  that  Ireland 
has  a  future — a  glorious  future, — and  that  that  future  is  to 
be  wrought  out  in  this  way.  They  say, — and  I  think  with 
justice  and  right — that  wealth  acquired  by  industry  brings 
with  it  power  and  political  influence.  They  say,  therefore, 
to  the  Irish  at  home,  "Try  to  accumulate  wealth;  lay  hold 
of  the  industries,  and  develop  the  resources  of  your  country. 
Try,  in  the  meantime,  and  labor  to  effect  that  blessed  union 
without  whicli  there  never  can  be  a  future  for  Ireland. 
That  union  can  only  be  effected  by  largeness  of  mind,  by 
generosity,  and  urbanity  amongst  fellow-citizens;  by  rising 
above  the  miserable  bigotry  that  carries  religious  differences 
and  religious  hatreds  into  the  relations  of  life  that  do  not 
belong  to  religion."  Meantime,  they  say  to  the  men  of  Ire- 
land, "  Try  and  acquire  property  and  wealth.  This  can 
only  be  done  by  developing  assiduous  industry  ;  and  that 
industry  can  only  be  exercised  as  long  as  the  country  is  at 
peace,  and  as  long  as  there  is  a  truce  to  violent  political 
agitation."  Then  these  men — I  am  giving  the  opinions  of 
others,  not  my  own — these  men  say  to  the  Irishmen  in 
America, — "  Men  of  Ireland  in  America — men  of  Irish 
birth — men  of  American  birth  but  of  Irish  blood — we  believe 
that  God  has  largely  intrusted  the  destinies  of  Ireland  to 
you.  America  demands  of  her  citizens  only  energy,  in- 
dustry^  temperance,  truthfulness,  obedience  to  the  laws  ;  and 
any  man  that  has  these,  with  the  brains  that  God  has  given 
to  every  Irishman,  is  sure  in  this  land  to  realize  fortune  and 


190  ENGLISH  MISMULE  ZzY  IRELAND. 

a  grand  future.  If  you  are  faitliful  to  America  in  these 
respects,  America  will  be  faithful  to  you.  And  in  propor- 
tion as  the  great  Irish  element  in  America  rises  in  wealth, 
it  will  rise  in  political  influence  and  power — the  political 
influence  and  power  which  in  a  few  years  is  destined  to 
overshadow  the  whole  world,  and  to  bring  about,  through 
peace  and  justice,  far  greater  revolutions  in  the  cause  of 
honor  and  humanity  than  have  ever  been  efiected  by  the 
sword."  This  is  the  programme  of  the  second  class  of  Irish- 
men ;  and  I  tell  you  candidly,  that  to  this  programme  I 
give  my  heart  and  soul. 

You  will  ask  me   about   separation  from  the  crown  of 
England.     Well,    that   is   a   ticklish    question,    ladies   and 
gentlemen.     I  dare  say  you  remember  that,  when  Charles 
Edward  was  Pretender  to  the  Crown  of  England,  during  the 
first  years  of  the  House  of  Hanover,  there  was  a  toast  which 
the  Jacobite  gentlemen  used  to  sdve.     It  v/as  this  : — 
"  God  bless  the  King,  our  noble  faitb's  defender ; 
Long  may  he  Uve  ;  and  down  with  the  Pretender. 
But  which  be  the  Pretender — which  be  King, — 
God  bless  us  all,  that's  quite  another  thing." 

And  yet,  with  the  courage  of  an  old  monk,  I  will  tell  you 
my  mind  on  this  very  question.  History  tells  us  that  em- 
pires, like  men,  run  the  cycle  of  years  of  their  life,  and  then 
die  ;  no  matter  how  extended  their  power,  no  matter  how 
mighty  their  influence,  no  matter  how  great  their  sway,  how 
invincible  their  armies ;  the  day  comes,  the  inevitable  day, 
that  brings  with  it  decay  and  disruption.  Thus  it  was  with 
the  empire  of  the  Medes  and  Persians  ;  thus  it  was  with  the 
mighty  empire  of  the  Assyrians;  thus  with  the  Egyptians 
of  old ;  thus  with  the  Greeks  ;  thus  with  Pome.  Who  would 
ever  have  imagined,  for  instance,  1,500  years  ago — before 
the  Goths  first  came  to  the  walls  of  Pome — who  would  have 
imagined  that  the  power  that  was  to  rule  with  undisputed 


THE  FUTURE  OF  IRELAND.  191 

sway  over  a  territory  greater  than  the  whole  Roman  Empire, 
would  be  the  little  unknown  island  flung  out  in  the  Western 
Ocean,  known  only  by  having  been  conquered  by  the 
ilomanS,  the  ultima  thule,  the  tin  island  in  the  far  ocean  ? 
And  this  was  Enj^land.  Who  would  have  imagined  that  in 
the  cycle  of  time  this  would  come  to  pass  ?  Now,  my 
friends,  England  has  been  a  long  time  at  the  top  of  the 
wheel ;  do  you  imagine  she  will  always  remain  there  ?  I  do 
not  want  to  be  one  bit  more  loyal  than  Lord  Macaulay :  and 
Lord  Macaulay  describes  the  day  "  when  the  traveller  from 
New  Zealand  shall  take  his  stand  upon  the  broken  arch  of 
London  Bridge  to  sketch  the  ruins  of  St.  Paul's."  Is  that 
wheel  of  England  rising  or  falling  ?  Is  England  to-day  what 
she  was  twenty  years  ago  ?  England,  twenty  years  ago,  in 
her  first  alliance  with  Napoleon,  had  a  finger  in  every  pie 
in  Europe — and  Lord  John  Kussell  and  Lord  Palmerston 
were  busy-bodies  of  the  first  order.  England  to-day  has  no 
more  to  say  in  the  affairs  of  Europe,  than  the  Emperor  of 
China  has.  You  see  I  am  only  talking  philosophy.  A 
few  months  ago,  the  three  great  Emperors, — of  Germany, 
Austria,  and  Russia, — came  together  in  Berlin  to  fix  the 
map  of  Euro})e ;  and  they  did  not  even  pay  the  courtesy 
of  asking  England  to  come  in,  to  know  what  she  had  to 
say  about  it.  The  army  of  England  to-day  is  nothing,  a 
mere  cipher.  The  German  Emperor  can  bring  his  1,200,000 
men  into  the  field;  and  England,  for  the  very  life  of  her, 
cannot  put  200,000  men  against  him.  An  English  citizen — 
a  loyal  Englishman — wrote  a  book  called  "  The  Battle  of 
Dorking,"  in  which  he  describes  a  German  army  marching 
on  London.  The  Englishman  was  loyal ;  and  Avhy  should  I 
be  more  loyal  than  he?  Of  England's  navy,  Mr.  Reade, 
Chief  Constructor  of  the  British  navy,  has  written  an  article 
in  a  London  paper,  in  which  he  declares  and  proves  that,  at 
this  moment,  the  British  fleet  would  be  afraid  to  go  into 


192  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

Kussian  waters.  They  are  not  able  to  meet  Kussia.  And 
why  should  I  be  more  loyal  than  Mr.  Keade  ?  An  empire 
begins  to  totter  and  crumble  to  decay,  when  it  withdraws  its 
forces  from  its  outlying  provinces  ;  as,  in  the  decay  of  Rome, 
the  Roman  legions  were  withdrawn  from  Britain.  England, 
to-day,  says  to  Canada  and  Australia,  "  Oh,  take  your 
government  into  your  own  hands ;  we  don't  want  to  be 
bothered  with  you  any  more  !  "  England,  that,  eighty  years 
ago,  fought  for  the  United  Colonies  of  America,  as  long  as 
she  could  put  a  man  into  the  field,  has  changed  her  policy. 
An  empire  is  crumbling  to  decay  when  she  begins  to  buy  off 
her  enemies,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Roman  Empire,  when  she 
began  to  buy  off  the  Scythians,  the  Dacians,  and  other  bar- 
baric races,  that  were  coming  down  upon  her  before  her 
Empire  fell.  England,  a  few  days  ago,  was  presented  with 
a  little  bill  by  America.  She  said,  "  Vv^hy,  Jonathan,  I  owe 
you  nothing ;  "  and  John  Bull  buttoned  u]3  his  pocket  and 
swore  he  would  not  pay  a  cent.  And  then  America  said, 
*'  Look  here,  John,  if  you  don't, — look  at  this  !  " — and  she 
took  the  sword  and  held  it  by  both  hands  : — "  whichever  end 
you  like."     John  Bull  paid  the  bill. 

My  friends,  it  looks  very  like  as  if  the  day  of  Lord  Ma- 
caulay's  New  Zealander  was  rapidly  approaching.  On  that 
day,  my  opinion  is,  that  Ireland  will  be  mistress  of  her  own 
destinies,  with  the  liberty  that  will  come  to  her,  not  from 
earth,  but  from  that  God  whom  she  has  never  forsaken. 
And  the  whole  question  is,  will  Ireland,  on  that  day,  be  wor- 
thy of  the  glorious  destiny  that  is  in  the  womb  of  time  and 
the  hand  of  God  ?  I  say  that  Ireland  will  be  worthy  of  it, 
if  that  day  dawn  upon  a  united  people,  upon  a  faithful  peo- 
ple, upon  a  people  that  will  keep,  every  man,  his  faith  in  God 
and  in  his  holy  religion,  as  his  fathers  before  him  kept  it  in 
the  dark  hour  and  in  the  terrible  day  of  persecution.  I  say 
that  Ireland  will  be  worthy  of  her  destiny,  if  on  that  day, 


TEE  FUTURE  OF  IRELAND.  I93 

when  it  dawns  upon  her,  she  will  be  found  as  distinctive,  as 
individual  a  people  and  race,  as  she  is  to-day  in  her  aiBiction 
and  in  her  misery ;  if  she  foster  her  traditions,  if  she  keep  up 
her  high  hopes,  if  she  keep  the  tender,  strong  love  that  her 
people  always  have  had  for  the  Green  Isle  that  bore  them — 
then  will  Ireland  be  worthy  of  her  destiny.  What  shall  that 
destiny  be?  My  friends,  if  Mr.  Froude  has  proved  any- 
thing, I  think  he  has  proved  this  general  proposition,  that, 
although  Almighty  God  lavished  upon  the  English  people 
many  gifts,  there  is  one  gift  he  never  gave  them ;  and  that  is 
the  gift  of  knowing  how  to  govern  other  people.  To  govern 
a  people  requires,  first  of  all,  strict  justice  ;  and,  secondly,  to 
have  the  interests  of  the  people  at  heart — their  real  interests ; 
and,  thirdly,  it  requires  tact  and  urbanity.  The  French  have 
this,  but  the  English  have  not.  Look  at  Alsace  and  Lor- 
raine ; — look  at  the  suffering  people,  the  brave  people,  emi- 
grating like  one  man,  attaching  themselves  to  France,  though 
she  is  down  in  the  dust,  rather  than  enter  into  rich  and  tri- 
umphant Germany.  And  why  ?  Because  France  won  theii* 
hearts  by  her  justice,  by  her  consulting  their  true  interests, 
and  by  her  French  urbanity  and  tact.  The  history  of  the 
English  Government's  connection  with  Ireland  is  a  history 
of  injustice ;  it  is  a  history  of  heartlessness ;  and  it  is,  above 
all,  a  history  of  blundering  want  of  tact :  not  knowing  what 
to  do  with  the  people ;  never  understanding  them  ;  knowing 
nothing  at  all  of  their  genius,  their  prejudices,  and  the  shape 
and  form  of  their  national  character. 

But  there  is  another  nation  that  understands  Ireland,  and 
hfis  proved  that  she  understands  Ireland ;  whose  statesmen 
l^.ave  always  spoken  words  of  bright  encouragement,  of  tender 
sympathy,  and  of  manly  hope  to  Ireland  in  her  darkest 
days;  and  that  nation  is  the  United  States  of  America;  the 
mighty  land,  placed  by  the  Omnipotent  hand  between  the  far 
East  on  the  one  side,  to  which  she  stretches  out  her  glorious 
9 


194  ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  IRELAND. 

arms,  over  tlie  broad  Pacific ;  whilst,  on  tlie  other,  she  sweeps 
with  her  left  hand  over  the  Atlantic,  and  touches  Europe ; 
the  mighty  land,  enclosing  in  her  splendid  bosom  untold  re- 
sources of  every  form  of  commercial  and  other  wealth ;  the 
mighty  land,  with  room  for  three  hundred  millions  of  men ; 
with  millions  of  the  oppressed  ones,  all  the  world  over,  fly- 
ing to  her  more  than  imperial  bosom,  there  to  find  liberty 
and  the  sacred  rights  of  civil  and  religious  freedom.  Is  there 
not  every  reason  to  suppose  that,  in  that  future  Avhich  we 
cannot  see  to-daj^,  but  which  lies  before  us, — America  will  be 
to  the  Avhole  world  what  Rome  was  in  the  ancient  days,  what 
England  was  but  a  few  years  ago, — the  great  storehouse  of 
the  woild,  the  great  ruler, — the  pacific  ruler, — of  the  desti- 
nies of  the  whole  world  :  the  great  manufacturing  power,  dis- 
pensing from  out  her  mighty  bosom  all  the  necessaries  and 
all  the  luxuries  of  life  to  the  whole  world  around  her  ? — that 
she  may  be  destined, — as  I  believe  she  is  destined, — ^to  rise 
rapidly  into  that  gigantic  form  that  will  overshadow  all  other 
nations.  When  that  glorious  day  comes  to  pass,  what  is  more 
natural  than  that  Ireland,  now,  as  I  sujDpose,  misti-ess  of  her 
own  destinies,  should  turn  and  stretch  out  the  arms  of  her 
sympathy  and  love  across  the  intervening  waves  of  the  At- 
lantic, and  be  received,  an  independent  State,  into  the  mighty 
confederation  of  America.  America, — mark,  I  am  not  speak- 
ing treason — remember,  I  say  distinctly,  all  this  is  to  come 
to  pass  after  Macaulay's  New  Zealander  has  arrived; — 
America  will  require  an  emporium  for  her  European  trade. 
Ireland  lies  there  right  between  her  and  Europe,  with  her 
splendid  coast  line,  and  vast  harbors  and  bays,  able  to  shel- 
ter all  her  commercial  and  other  fleets.  America  may  re- 
quire a  great  European  storehouse,  a  great  European  hive 
for  her  manufactures ;  and  Ireland  has  enormous  water- 
power,  now  flowing  idly  to  the  sea,  but  which  yet,  in  the  fut- 
ure day,  may  be  busy  in  turning  the  wheels  set  upon  these 


THE  FUTURE  OF  IRELAND.  105 

streams  by  American-Irish  capital  and  Irish  industry.  If 
ever  that  day  comes,  if  ever  that  union  comes,  it  will  be  no 
degradation  to  Ireland  to  join  hands  with  America,  because 
America  does  not  enslave  her  States ;  she  accepts  them  on 
terms  of  glorious  equality :  she  respects  their  rights,  and 
blesses  all  who  cast  their  lot  with  her. 

Now,  I  have  done  with  this  subject  and  with  Mr.  Froude. 
I  have  one  word  to  say  before  I  retire,  and  that  is,  if  during 
the  course  of  these  five  lectures  one  single  word  personally 
offensive  to  this  distinguished  gentleman  has  escaped  my 
lips,  I  take  that  word  back  now ;  I  apologize  to  him  before 
he  asks  me  ;  and  I  beg  to  assure  him  that  such  a  word  never 
came  wilfully  from  my  mind  or  from  my  heart.  He  says 
he  loves  Ireland ;  and  I  believe  according  to  his  lights  he 
does  love  Ireland ;  but  our  lights  are  very  different  from  his. 
Still  the  Almighty  God  will  judge  every  man  according  to 
his  lights. 


CONCLUDING  LECTURE. 

{Delivered  in  the  Academy  of  Music ^  Brooklyn^  December  19,  1872. 


Ladies  and  Gentlemen:  I  need  not  telL..you  that  this 
world  in  which  we  live  is  a  very  changeable  world.  We 
have  seen  so  many  changes  ourselves,  in  our  own  day,  that 
we  have  learned  to  be  astonished  at  nothing.  We  have  seen, 
but  a  few  years  ago — only  four  years  ago — France,  reputed 
the  bravest  and  most  powerful  nation  in  Europe.  To-day, 
France  is  down  in  the  dust ;  and  there  is  no  one  found  so 
poor  as  to  do  glorious  France  honor.  So,  in  like  manner,  a 
few  years  ago,  when  Lord  Palmerston  was  at  the  head  of  the 
English  Ministry,  England  was  considered  one  of  the  most  in- 
fluential and  one  of  the  most  powerful  nations  of  the  earth  : 
and  to-day  we  see  how  things  are  changed.  In  our  own  time, 
we  remember,  whenever  England  had  any  argument  to  state, 
any  theory  of  a  national  kind  to  propound,  any  cause  to  de- 
fend, she  sent  her  fleets  and  her  armies.  Even  as  late  as 
1858,  she  had  an  argument  with  the  Emperor  of  Russia; 
and  she  sent  her  fleets  and  armies  to  discuss  the  question 
at  the  point  of  the  sword.  Later  still,- — but  a  few  months 
ago,  I  may  say — she  had  an  argument  with  the  Emperor,  as 
he  was  called,  of  Abyssinia ;  and  she  sent  her  army  there  to 
try  conclusions  and  to  reason  with  him.  To-day,  my  friends, 
she  has  an  argument  with  Ireland ;  and  instead  of  adopting 
the  old  policy  of  sending  some  Cromwell  or  other  over  there 
at  the  head  of  an  army,  to  argue  with  the  Irish, — with  the 
Bible  in  one  hand  and  the  sword  in  the  other, — she  sends 
over  to  America  a  talking  man,  to  talk  over  it. 

.England  has  tried  issues  with  my  native  land  for  many 
a  long  century ;    for  seven  hundred  years  on  the  National 


REPLY  TO  MP.  FBOUDE'S  ''LAST   WORDSy    197 

question ;  for  three  liiiiiclred  years  on  the  still  more  im- 
portant religions  question.  On  the  religious  question  Eng- 
land is  fairly  beaten ;  and  on  the  National  question,  al- 
though we  have  not  yet  triumphed,  she  has  never  been 
able  to  knock  the  nationality  out  of  Ireland.  So  what 
does  she  do  ?  The  days  are  past  and  gone  when  she  could 
send  her  Cromwell  or  her  William  of  Orange  to  Ireland : 
and  to-day  she  has  nothiug  better  to  fiill  back  upon  than  to 
send  an  Englishman  over  to  America  to  abuse  us, — to  try 
and  make  out  that  we  are  the  most  ungovernable  and  the 
most  God-abandoned  race  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  So  he 
comes,  and  delivers  his  message.  AYhen  first  he  came  he 
told  the  people  of  America,  if  you  remember — you  all  re- 
member it  as  well  as  I  do, — that  he  intended,  as  far  as  he 
could,  to  justif}^  England's  treatment  of  Ireland;  and  con- 
sequently, that  this  was  his  intention  is  clearly  manifested 
by  the  simple  fact  that  he  has  gone  into  the  whole  history 
of  the  relations  between  England  and  Ireland.  He  has 
gone  through  them  all.  He  began  with  the  Norman  inva- 
sion ;  and  he  came  down  to  the  present  year,  for  the  sole  and 
avowed  purpose  of  white-washing  England  as  far  as  he  could, 
and  making  out  that,  after  all,  she  was  not  so  bad  as  people 
were  inclined  to  believe  she  was.  And  when  he  was  followed 
on  this  great  issue,  my  friends,  Mr.  Eroude  turns  around 
and  says  :  "  You  are  all  greatly  mistaken.  I  don't  want  a 
verdict  from  the  American  people,  to  justify  England.  I 
don't  want  to  put  America  in  the  confessional,  and  make  my 
country  kneel  down  and  get  a  plenary  absolution  for  aM  that 
she  ever  did  to  Ireland.  That  is  not  my  intention  at  all. 
My  intention  is,  and  the  verdict  I  seek  is  simply  this  :  There 
is  a  movement  going  on  in  Ireland  now  called  the  *  Home 
Kule '  agitation.  Irishmen,"  he  says,  "are  beginning  at  home 
to  say  that  they  have  the  right  to  make  their  own  laws,  and 
to  be  governed  by  their  own  laws.  They  say  that  it  is 
not  right,  nor  fair,  nor  just,  that  the  things  that  could  be  so 
well  done  at  home,  should  be  so  badly  done  in  London,  by 
men  who  know  very  little  about  Ireland,  and  who  care  less. 
Now,"  he  says,  "  I  come  to  America  simply  to  obtain  the 
verdict  of  American  public  opinion  to  this  eftect :  that  the 
Irish  don't  know  how  to  govern  themselves ;  that  whatever 


198    BEPLT  TO  MR.  FROUDE'S  ''LAST   WORDS:' 

oilier  virtues  or  talents  tliey  have,  they  have  not  the  talent 
nor  the  virtue  of  self-government ;  they  are  not  wise  enough, 
they  are  not  prudent  enough,  they  are  not  temperate  enough, 
they  are  not  suJSicientiy  civilized  nor  sufficiently  tolerant  to 
govern  themselves  ;  and  I  will  prove  it  from  their  history  ; 
and  I  ask  the  American  people  to  send  over  this  word  to  the 
Irish,  '  Now,  boys,  have  sense.  You  don't  know  what  is  for 
your  own  good ; — you  never  did,  and  Mr.  Froude  has 
brought  it  home  to  us.  You  may  liave  a  great  many 
virtues, — he  acknowledges  that  you  have  some  ; — but  you 
have  no  sense  at  all.  We  have  sense  ;  and  the  English 
people  have — and  always  had — twice  as  much  sense  as  you 
have.  They  know  how  to  govern  you  beautifully — oh  ! 
how  sweetly  !  Leave  yourselves  entirely  in  their  hands,  and 
they  will  make  the  finest  laws  that  ever  were  heard  of  for 
your  special  use  and  benefit.  They  love  you  like  the  apple 
of  their  eye.  They  are  very  anxious  to  see  Ireland  prosper- 
ous, wealthy,  rich,  and  powerful ;  they  are  very  anxious  to 
give  you  all  that  they  have  themselves ;  and  a  great  deal 
more.  So,  Mr.  Froude  says,  all  you  have  to  do,  liow,  is 
to  keep  yourselves  quiet ;  leave  the  Parliament  Avhere  it  is, 
and  send  your  Members  of  Parliament  over  there.  Let  the 
English  members  and  the  Scotch  members, — who  have  a 
sweeping  majority, — let  them  make  laws  for  you ;  and  these 
will  be  salutary  and  beautiful  laws  for  Ireland.  You  don't 
know  how  to  make  such  laws  yourselves.  You  don't  know 
anything  about  your  own  interests,  or  the  principles  of  gov- 
ernment. You  don't  understand  your  own  country.'  "  And 
he  expects  America,  like  an  old  woman,  to  send  over  this 
advice  to  Ireland. 

It  is  not  with  Mr.  Fronde's  facts  in  detail,  so  much,  that 
I  have  to  deal,  as  with  the  spirit  of  the  man.  In  his  reply 
to  my  lectures,  he  distinctly  states  that  he  does  not  seek 
justification  for  England's  past  conduct ;  but  that  ho  came 
here  to  arouse  public  American  opinion  against  the  princi- 
ple, so  dear  to  Irishmen,  that  they  have  the  right,  and  that 
God  has  given  them  the  power,  and  the  intelligence,  and  the 
capability  to  make  their  own  laws  and  to  be  governed  by 
them.  He  has  traced  England's  dealings  with  Ireland :  he 
has  traced  them,  no  doubt,  in  a  masterly  manner.     I  wish  I 


REPLY  TO  MB.  FROUDE'S  ''LAST   WORDS/'    199 

could  do  it  half  so  well.  But,  my  friends,  tlirouglioiit,  the 
leading  idea  in  the  mind  of  this  historian,  clearly  manifested 
and  avowed  by  him,  is  to  bring  home  to  every  tliinking  man 
in  this  land  the  conviction  that  we  Irish  did  not  know  how 
to  govern  ourselves.  He  says, — they  have  had  the  country 
in  their  own  hands  for  centuries,  and  how  did  they  govern 
it  ?  The  Chieftains  were  harrying  the  very  life  out  of  the 
people.  Ireland  was  divided  into  little  factions ;  and,  in- 
deed, he  went  on  to  say,  in  a  manner  that  does  not  reflect 
credit  upon  him, — that  every  family  in  the  land  had  its  ovv^n 
independence,  and  governed  itself.  Ireland  was  divided 
into  small  factions ;  each  faction  had  its  own  chief ;  and 
every  chieftain  was  engaged,  from  Monday  morning  till 
Saturday  night,  and  including  Sunday,  in  cutting  somebody 
else's  throat,  and  getting  his  own  cut  in  return.  According 
to  Mr.  Froude,  it  was  a  miracle  that  there  were  a  hundred 
people  left  in  Ireland  at  the  time  when  there  were  three, 
four,  or  five  millions.  What  would  you  say,  my  friends,  if 
I  went  back  to  Ireland  or  England,  after  my  year's  residence 
in  New  York  ;  and  if  I  said  in  a  public  lecture,  "  Do  you 
know  what  life  is  in  New  York,  or  Brooklyn,  or  Jersey 
City?  Every  family  is  independent;  and  every  father  of  a 
family,  with  his  sons,  is  engaged  every  day  in  cutting  their 
neighbors'  throats ;  and  I  will  give  you  proof  of  it — their 
own  newspapers.  They  tell  us  that  at  this  moment  there 
are  eighteen  or  twenty  men  in  jail  in  New  York  for  murder  ; 
how  in  the  saloons  and  drinking-places  they  stab  one  an- 
other, and  they  shoot  one  another.  Tiiey  tell  us  hov/^  men 
are  knocked  down  in  the  street ;  how  a  gentleman  from 
Kentucky,  the  other  day,  walked  out  of  the  hotel,  and  sight 
nor  light  of  him  was  never  seen  again.  This  is  the  way 
they  live  in  New  York, — worse  than  a  parcel  of  savages, — 
worse  than  the  red  Indians."  Now  I  ask  you,  if  I  went 
back  to  Dublin  or  London,  and  said  these  words,  how  would 
you  feel  about  it  ?  Would  you  feel  quite  pleased  in  your 
minds  ?  Would  you  say  I  was  telling  the  truth  ?  or  would 
you  not  say,  "  Surely,  I  never  thought  that  Father  Tom 
Burke  was  such  an  infernal  liar  ?  " 

I  assert  that  there  is  not  a  people  living  more  capable  of 
self-government  and  of  making  their  own  laws  and  living 


200  REPLY  TO  MB.  FROUDE'8  ''LAST  WORDS:' 

■under  them  than  the  Irish  people  to  whom  I  belong :  and  I 
will  prove  it  from  Mr.  Fronde  himself.  I  will  not  go  out- 
side of  him.  Mr.  Fronde  admits,  as  every  thinking  man 
must,  that  the  great  elements  of  self-government  among  a 
people  are,  first  of  all,  respect  for  justice  and  for  law ;  sec- 
ondly, fidelity  to  principle ;  thirdly,  afiection  for  their  own 
lavv  s,  and  love  of  the  law ;  and  fourthly,  a  capability  of  bo- 
ing  formed  by  those  who  govern  them  and  direct  them. 
These  are  the  four  great  attributes  that  belong  to  a  people, 
and  that  entitle  them,  if  they  have  them,  to  the  right  of  self- 
government.  I  grant  you,  that  if  a  race  or  a  people  had  no 
respect  for  the  law  ; — if  tliey  despised  the  law,  and  were  anx- 
ious to  violate  the  law  precisely  because  it  was  the  law,  that 
that  people  do  not  deserve  to  have  the  power  of  making 
their  own  laws ;  and  it  would  be  a  mercy  from  God  if  some- 
body governed  them  and  made  laws  for  them.  But  are  tbe 
Irish  that  people  ?  Listen,  my  friends  :  Mr.  Fronde,  in  the 
course  of  his  lectures,  has  quoted  frequently  a  great  author- 
ity in  Irish  history,  viz. :  Sir  John  Davis,  who  was  Attor- 
ney-General in  the  reign  of  James  the  First.  This  was  an 
Englishman — or  I  believe,  indeed,  a  Welshman — that  came 
over  from  England  for  tlie  express  purpose  of  j^lunderiug 
the  Irish  of  their  property ;  and  he,  accordingly,  accumula- 
ted vast  wealth,  and  had  great  estates  in  Ireland.  Yet  this 
man  writes  these  words  :  "  There  is  no  people  under  Heaven 
that  love  equal  and  fair  justice  like  the  Irish."  "  There  is  no 
people,"  he  -adds,  "  who  are  more  willing  to  submit  to  fair, 
impartial  justice,  even  though  it  go  against  themselves,  than 
the  Irish."  Elsewhere  he  writes,  "  AVhen  things  are  peaceful, 
and  there  is  no  war  going  on,  the  Irish  are  far  more  fearful 
of  offending  against  the  law  than  the  English."  If  I  quoted 
from  some  Donough  O'Brien,  or  some  Terence  O'Neill,  or  if 
I  quoted  the  "  Four  Masters,"  for  this,  Mr.  Fronde  would 
turn  round  on  me  and  say  :  "  Oh,  ho !  Do  you  hear  the 
Friar  quoting  the  old  Franciscans, — the  old  Irish  Monks ! 
Oh!"  he  would  say,  (if  he  knew  Irish) — "  5o  T)-oti<v^|ie  <v 
Di<v  <x-i|i-i<x6!  "  but  he  hasn't  the  grace  to  know  it. 

But  I  have  been  reviewing  the  lectures  in  which  I  an- 
swered Mr.  Fronde ;  and  although  a  New  York  newspaper 
has  charged  me  with  quoting  Catholic  authorities,  I  protest 


REPLY  TO  MB.  FROUDE'S  ''LAST   WORDS:'  201 

to  yoTi,  my  friends,  I  can  say  with  truth,  from  the  first 
W()rds  of  those  lectures  down  to  the  last,  every  single  author- 
ity that  was  quoted  by  me  was  a  Protestant  or  an  English- 
man, And  does  not  the  history  of  Ireland  bear  out  the 
truth  of  what  Sir  John  Davis  says  ?  There  were  two  par- 
ties in  Ireland  for  700  years,  my  friends ;  these  v/ere  the  old 
native  Irish,  the  Mac's  and  the  O's, — the  O'Connors,  the 
O'Briens,  the  McMurroughs,  the  O'Bp^nes,  the  O'Tooles, 
the  O'Neills,  and  the  O'Donnells.  These  were  the  genuine 
Irish :  it  was  to  these  men  that  God  Almighty  had  given 
Ireland ;  and  the  soil  was  theirs,  for  they  held  it  by  the 
right  by  which  every  people  hold  their  own  land,  viz.  :  the 
right  of  a  gift  from  God.  Then  came  the  Normans,  the 
Fitzgeralds,  the  De  Courceys,  the  Butlers,  the  Burkes ;  and 
when  they  entered  Ireland,  they  became,  in  a  hundred  years, 
*' more  Irish  than  the  Irish  themselves."  That  is  the  old 
phrase.  Mr.  Froude  quotes  it,  and  says:  "  Perhaps  Father 
Burke  never  heard  of  that  phrase  !  "  The  Lord  be  praised ! 
as  if  we  didn't  all  know  that  phrase  since  we  were  weaned. 
But  I  may  remark,  in  all  Mr.  Froude's  reply  to  me,  that  he 
takes  it  for  granted — I  suppose  because  I  am  an  Irishman — 
that  I  know  nothing  about  my  native  land.  "  Perhaps 
Father  Burke  doesn't  know  this,"  and  "  perhaps  Father 
Burke  didn't  read  that ;  "  but  I  will  tell  him  about  this  and 
that.  "  Perhaps  Father  Burke  never  heard  that  the  Normans 
were  more  Irish  than  the  Irish  themselves."  They  were. 
But  of  all  the  traits  of  the  Irish  character  that  the}^  took 
up,  the  most  prominent  amongst  those,  in  which  they  beoame 
truly  "  more  Irish  than  the  Irish  themselves,"  was  their  love 
of  fighting  and  of  devilment  in  general.  They  became  the 
most  unruly  lot  in  the  land  ;  and  we  have  the  proof  of  it  in 
this:  that  we  have  the  Earl  of  Surrey  writing  home  to  Henry 
the  Eighth,  who  had  sent  him  to  Ireland,  telling  him  about 
the  Irish  Chieftains — the  Mac's  and  the  O's;  he  says,  "they 
are  wise  men,  your  Majesty,  and  good  and  quiet  men ;  a 
great  deal  better  than  the  English." 

If  then   the   first  element    and   the   first   attribute    of   a 

people  to  entitle  them  to  self-government,  be  their  respect 

for  justice  and  for  law,  I  hold,  upon  the  evidence  of  English 

authorities,  that  no  man  can  deny  to  the  Irish  nation 'the 

9* 


202  REPLY  TO  MR.  FROUDE'8  ''LAST  WORDS:' 

right  given  by  God  to  every  people  to  govern  themselvea 
according  to  their  own  laws.  But  there  is  another  trait  in 
the  character  of  the  Irish  people  that  Mr.  Froude  brings  out, 
both  in  his  lectures  and  in  former  essays ;  and  it  is  well 
worthy  of  remark.  He  says  :  "  They  are  a  people  that  are 
singularly  adapted  to  good  government."  And  do  you 
know  the  instance  he  gives?  He  says,  in  one  of  his  es- 
says : 

"  Take  a  wild,  ragged  peasant  boy — one  that  is  willing  to 
fling  up  his  caubeen  into  the  air,  and  hurrah  for  Smith 
O'Brien,  and  hurrah  for  every  Fenian,  and  hurrah  for  every 
Irish  patriot.     Catch  that  boy  " — 

"  Catch"  him  !  as  if  he  were  talking  of  some  young  beast 
or  wild  savage !  — 

"  Catch  hiui,  drill  him,  and  teach  him,  and  in  a  few  years 
you  will  have  one  of  the  finest  policemen  of  any  people  on 
the  face  of  the  earth." 

And  this  he  gives  as  a  very  good  instance  that  the  Irish 
people,  as  he  asserts,  beyond  all  other  people,  are  capable 
of  a  perfect  discipline,  under  good,  wise  government.  Now, 
I  take  him  on  that  point;  and  I  say,  if,  according  to  you, 
my  learned  friend,  a  year  or  two  of  discipline  and  of  justice 
and  of  good  government  will  make  such  a  perfect  subject 
out  of  an  Irishman,  tell  us,  if  you  please,  Mr.  Froude,  how 
is  it  that  for  seven  hundred  years  you  have  never  been  able  to 
make  good  subjects  out  of  them  ?  The  reason  is  that,  for 
seven  hundred  years,  Ireland  has  never  known,  for  twenty- 
four  consecutive  hours,  what  good  government  or  sensible  gov- 
ernment meant.  The  Scripture  says  that  one  of  the  greatest 
curses  that  can  fall  upon  a  people  is  to  give  them  a  child  for 
their  king :  that  is  to  say,  a  child  without  reason,  without 
wisdom.  And  the  curse  of  Ireland  has  been  that  she  has 
been  governed  fur  seven  hundred  years,  not  by  one  child, 
nor  by  one  booby,  but  by  a  nation  of  boobies  that  never 
knew  how  to  govern.  Any  other  people  under  the  same 
government  would  have  been  driven  mad.  The  Irish  have 
only  been  made  national — every  man  of  them — to  the  heart's 
core. 

The  third  great  element  that  asserts  a  people's  right  to 


BEPLT  TO  MR.  FROUDE'S  ''LAST   WORDS:'   oqs 

g(tvevn  tliemselves  is  their  fidelity  to  principle.  A  mao 
without  principle  cannot  govern  himself;  and  a  nation  with- 
out principle  loses  the  sacred  right  to  self-government  by 
the  judgment  of  God.  What  do  I  mean  by  principle?  I 
mean  certain  ideas  of  right  and  wrong,  fixing  themselves  ii^ 
the  mind  and  in  the  heart  and  in  the  conscience  of  the 
people,  anji  taking  such  hold  of  that  mind  and  heart  and 
conscience  that  no  power  on  earth  or  in  hell  can  tear  those 
principles  out  of  the  national  life.  Show  me  a  single  prin- 
ciple in  ihe  history  of  the  English  people  to  which  they  have 
clung  with  this  fervor.  There  is  not  one,  except,  indeed,  if 
you  will,  the  princi[)le  of  extending  their  empire  by  robbery 
and  by  the  confiscation  of  their  neighbors'  goods.  Y/as  the 
princi})le  of  religion  so  fixed  in  their  minds  ?  No ;  for  at 
the  bickling  of  Henry  VIII.  they  changed  their  religion. 
Was  the  principle  of  devotion  to  the  thione  so  fixed  in  tlieir 
minds '?  Is  o  ;  for  at  the  wave  of  Cromwell's  sword  all  Eng- 
land bowed  before  him ;  and  England  cheered  him  in  the 
day  when  he  cut  ofi'  the  head  of  England's  king.  What 
principle  is  there  revealed  in  the  philosophy  of  their  history, 
for  which  that  people  were  ever  prepared  to  sufter,  much 
less  to  die'?  Now,  the  whole  history  of  the  Irish  race, 
from  the  day  that  their  history  dawns  upon  us,  down  to 
this  hour,  is  the  assertion  of  an  eternal  principle,  no  matter 
at  what  sacrifice  or  what  cost.  The  first  and  strongest  princi- 
ple that  can  govern  the  mind,  the  heart,  and  the  conscience 
of  any  man,  and,  consequently,  of  any  people,  is  their  fidelity 
to  what  they  know  to  he  the  truth  and  their  duty  to  God. 
Unless  you  admit  this  religious  principle  in  the  mind  and  in 
the  cmiscience  of  the  man  with  whom  you  have  to  deal,  the 
less  you  have  to  say  to  him,  the  less  you  trust  him,  the  bet- 
ter. Tell  me,  my  friends,  is  there  a  man  amongst  you  who 
would  place,  say  $10,000,  in  trust,  depending  upon  the  honor 
of  a  man  who  told  you  he  had  no  religious  principle  whatever  ; 
that  he  had  no  rules  governing  his  conscience  ;  that  he  did 
not  care  a  snap  of  his  fingers  for  religion  ?  You  would  take 
good  care  to  keep  your  money  out  of  his  hands,  I  tell  you. 
Ireland,  for  fifteen  hundred  years,  has  held  the  Catholic 
faith  among  the  nations.  The  Catholic  faith  has  three  ef- 
fects operating  upon  the  man,  and,  consequently,  upon  the 


204:  REPLY   TO  MR.  FROUDE'S  ''LAST   WORDS:' 

Deople  who  profess  it.  First  of  all,  it  acts  upon  the  intel- 
lect as  an  intellectual  conviction  of  the  strongest  kind,  as- 
senting and  consenting  to  the  truth.  Secondly,  it  acts  upon 
the  heart,  purifying  the  affections  and  strengthening  all  the 
emotions  of  the  spirit  in  man.  Thirdly,  it  acts  upon  the 
conscience,  in  the  form  of  a  strict,  immutable,  unchanging  law, 
to  which  every  man  who  professes  it, — be  he  great  or  small, 
gentle  or  simple, — must  bow  down  and  conform  himself  alike. 
I  assert  that  the  Catholic  religion  alone  possesses  this  triple 
influence  over  the  intelligence,  heart,  and  conscience  of  man  ; 
and  I  will  prove  it  in  three  words,  although  it  does  not  enter 
into  the  subject  of  my  lecture.  First  of  all,  among  all  re- 
ligions, it  alone  acts  upon  the  intellect.  The  Catholic  relig- 
ion alone  tells  a  man  what  to  believe,  and  tells  him  that  with 
so  much  certainty  that  he  is  not  at  liberty  to  change  it.  The 
best  Protestant  in  the  United  States  can  become  a  Methodist, 
or  a  Presbyterian,  or  a  Quaker,  or  a  Mormon,  or  anything 
you  like.  He  will  go  to  hear  the  Eev.  Mr.  So-and-so  this 
Sunday ;  and  he  will  go  to  hear  the  Eev.  Mr.  Somebody-else 
on  the  next  Sunda3\  On  one  day  he  will  hear  the  Eev.  Mr. 
So-and-so  say  that  black  is  white;  and  the  next  Sunday 
Eev.  Mr.  Such-a-one  will  tell  him  that  white  is  black.  He 
has  no  fixed  principle  of  belief;  he  has  no  real,  unchang- 
ing, intellectual  faith  at  all.  His  mind  is  like  the  open  high- 
way, where  every  traveller  can  pass  along.  The  Catholic 
religion  alone  influences  the  heart ;  and  I  assert  this  for  her 
on  the  simple  ground  that  she  alone  takes  hold  of  the  heart 
of  man,  and  fixes  it  forever  in  one  form  of  afiection  or  love. 
If  she  calls  that  man  to  the  priesthood,  she  consecrateg  him 
forever  to  the  love  of  the  Church,  the  altar,  and  the  sduls  of 
his  brethren.  Not  a  single  thought,  nor  aftection,  nor  emo- 
tion of  any  other  love  must  ever  enter  that  consecrated 
mind,  or  must  ever  be  let  into  his  heart.  She  seals,  with 
her  sacramental  blessing,  the  matrimonial  bonds,  and  they 
are  fixed  forever, — that  man  and  that  woman.  Heaven  and 
earth  may  be  moved ;  every  other  engagement  may  be  bro- 
ken ;  every  other  oath  may  be  violated  ;  but  the  Catholic 
Church*  says  that  the  oath  which  binds  the  husband  to  the 
wife,  and  the  wife  to  the  husband,  is  an  oath  as  immutable, 
in  mutual  fidelity  and  love,  and  as  unchanging  ar,  the  oath 
which  binds  Christ  to  His  Church. 


REPLY  TO  MB.  FROUDITS  ''LAST  WORDS:'  205 

linallj,  she  alone  lays  hold  of  the  conscience  of  a  man, 
shakes  him,  brings  him  face  to  face  with  himself,  teaches 
him  to  look  at  himself  with  fearless  eye,  teaches  him,  in 
her  sacraments  and  in  her  confessional,  to  bring  up  all 
that  was  basest,  vilest,  meanest  and  most  shameful  of  his 
sinsj  to  lay  them  out  there  under  his  own  eyes,  and  con- 
fess them  with  his  lips.  And  I  say  that  this  is  the  first 
principle  of  fidelity  in  a  nation, — fidelity  to  the  principles 
of  their  religion.  For  fifteen  hundred  years,  Ireland,  in- 
tellectually, heartily,  and  conscientiously,  has  held  that 
Catholic  faith.  For  three  hundred  years  the  Danes  endeav- 
ored to  change  that  faith  into  paganism ;  for  the  Danish  war 
was  a  religious  war.  Ireland  fought ;  fought  with  heroic 
strength,  fought  with  unwearying  arm,  fought  Avith  undying 
though  bleeding  heart ;  and  for  three  hundred  years  she 
struggled;  until  at  length  she  cast  the  Dane  to  the  earth, 
and  the  Christ  put  his  foot  upon  the  neck  of  tlie  Pagan 
Thor  of  the  Scandinavian.  Another  cycle  of  three  hun- 
dred years  came,  and  it  was  no  longer  the  Dane,  but 
it  was  the  Saxon  that  held  his  sword  at  the  throat  of 
Ireland,  and  said,  even  as  the  Dane  of  old  said  to  her, 
*'  Oh,  Erin,  Paganism  or  death ; "  so  he  said  to  her, 
"  Protestantism  or  death."  And  Ireland  answered,  as  she 
had  answered  the  Dane  of  old  :  "  I  will  fight,  I  will  sufter, 
I  will  die.  All  this  I  know  how  to  do ;  and  well.  Bat  my 
faith  I  never  will  change  from  God,  from  His  Christ,  and 
from  His  Holy  Church."  And  just  as,  after  three  hundred 
years  of  war,  on  that  Good  Friday  morning,  the  sun,  as  it 
rose  in  the  heavens,  beheld  an  Irish  King,  with  his  Irish 
army,  triumphant,  pealing  forth  their  notes  of  gladness 
over  the  stricken  and  conquered  Danes ;  so,  after  three  hun- 
dred years  of  the  second  cycle,  the  sun  arose,  on  that  fair 
May  morning,  in  1829,  and  beamed  upon  the  face  of  the 
great  O'Connell  and  the  Irish  nation,  v/aving,  over  the 
ruined  battlements  of  the  tyrant  old  blood-stained  Estab- 
lished Protestant  Church  of  Ireland,  the  glorious  banner  of 
civil  and  religious  equality  and  freedom  which  was  to  be 
ours  forever. 

Does  Mr.  Froude  tell  me,  or  tell  America,  that, — our  peo- 
ple having  thus  stood  in  the  gap,  for  six  hundred  years,. 


206  BEPLY  TO  MR  FROUDE'8  ''LAST   WORDS." 

faithful  to  the  first  principle — the  religious  principle — the 
principle  which  includes  every  other  form  of  virtue  and 
principle,  and  which,  if  a  man  is  faithful  to  it,  will  make 
him  honest,  pure,  and  faithful  in  all  his  commercial,  domes- 
tic, civil,  and  national  relations ; — does  this  man  mean  to  tell 
me  that  a  people  that  have  never  shown  that  fidelity  to 
princii)le,  either  to  God  or  to  king,  are  fitted  by  the  Al- 
mighty God  to  govern  and  make  laws  for  such  a  people  as 
the  Irish  ? 

It  is  worthy  of  remark,  my  friends,  that  the  loyalty  to 
God,  which  distinguished  Irish  Catholics,  was  carried  into 
their  other  relations  of  life  ;  and  none  were  so  loyal,  even 
to  kings  that  were  unjust  to  them,  I  scarcely  mention 
this  in  their  favor  ; — I  scarcely  look  upon  it  as  praise- 
worthy ;  yet  I  must  say,  whenever  England  rebelled  against 
her  king,  Ireland  stood  up  and  said :  "  I  will  not  change 
from  him  ;  if  he  was  my  king  yesterday,  he  has  not  for- 
feited his  right;  and  I  will  be  faithful  to  him  to-day." 
Charles  the  First  was  King  of  England  and  Ireland  :  Eng- 
land rebelled  against  him ;  the  people  and  Parliament  rose 
against  him ;  the  Scotch  sent  down  their  army  to  fight 
against  him.  Ireland  came  out  like  one  man,  and  said : 
*'  This  man  has  done  nothing  to  forfeit  my  allegiance.  I 
will  not  give  up  my  legitimate  monarch."  James  the  Sec- 
ond fled  from  England,  and  the  English  people  at  once 
said :  "  Oh,  let  him  go."  (And,  dear  knows,  they  were 
right !  )  Poor,  foolish  Ireland,  strong  in  the  principle  of 
loyalty, — strong  in  principle, — said :  "  I  will  fight  for  him ; 
for  he  was  my  king.  If  he  was  my  king  yesterday,  and  I 
was  obliged  to  obey  him,  why  should  I  not  obey  him  to- 
day ?  "  They  took  the  field,  and  bled  profusely.  I  men- 
tion this  only  to  show  you  that,  if  Mr.  Froude's  argument 
against  Irish  self-government  is  based  upon  Irish  want  of 
principle,  I  gather  up  the  refutation  of  his  assertions  from 
out  tlie  history  of  England;  and  I  fling  them  into  his  face, 
and  tell  him  to  go  home  again. 

The  Irish  people  have  shown  the  four  great  attributes 
which  entitle  a  people  to  self-government:  namely,  that 
they  not  only  love  justice  and  obey  the  law,  but  that  they 
love  the  law,  provided  it  be  a  just  and  natural  Jaw;  and 


BEPLT  TO  MR  FROUDE'S  ''LAST   WORDS:'  207 

allo\r  that  law  to  sink  into  tlieir  lives  :  that  they  are  willing 
to  conform  all  their  actions  to  it ;  and  that  their  love  of 
good  law  is  only  second  to  the  love  which  they  bear  for 
their  religion.  This  I  will  prove.  For  four  hundred 
years,  England  strove,  with  might  and  main,  to  change  the 
laws  of  Ireland :  and  she  failed.  From  the  year  that 
Strongbow  landed,  in  1169,  until  that  year,  in  the  six- 
teenth century,  when  Henry  the  Eighth  was  proclaimed 
"  King  of  Ireland," — nay,  for  many  years  after, — the  Irish 
people,  in  spite  of  all  the  efforts  of  England,  clung  to  their 
old  Brehon  laws,  lived  under  them,  and  obeyed  them. 
And  I  tell  you  they  were  right.  I  tell  you,  my  friends, 
that  there  is  one  portion  of  Irish  history  that  is  not  suffi- 
ciently known, — not  sufficiently  considered  by  the  people, 
either  in  Ireland  or  America, — nor  by  historians,  like  my 
friend,  Mr.  Froude.  We  are  all  accustomed  to  speak, 
to-day,  of  the  Consiitutiou  of  America  as  one  of  the  most 
glorious, — perliaps  the  most  glorious, — on  the  face  of  the 
earth.  And  why?  Because  that  Constitution  gives  the 
most  liberty  of  any  other, — the  most  liberty  to  every 
citizen  of  the  State,  no  matter  how  humble  he  may  be; 
because  that  Constitution  will  not  i-ecognize'  the  right 
of  any  one  man  in  the  State  to  injure  or  tyrannize  over 
another : — because  that  Constitution  admits  the  State  gov- 
•  ernments  on  terms  of  equality, — every  State  having  its 
own  laws,  having  its  own  government,  having  its  own 
Executive,  for  its  own  affiairs; — because  that  Constitution 
has  known  how  to  reconcile  the  individual  liberty, — the 
State  liberty, — with  the  strong  central  government  which  is 
represented  in  the  President  of  the  United  States,  who  is 
elected  every  four  years.  If  we  look  back  at  the  ancient 
nations  of  Europe,  there  never  was  anything  like  the  gi'cat 
American  Republic.  We  do  not  find  it.  We  do  not  find 
the  State  governments  in  any  of  the  old  nations,  or  in  any  of 
the  modern  nations  of  Europe.  But  this  very  day  wo  find 
England, — having  robbed  Ireland  of  her  State  government, 
■ — having  robbed  Scotland  of  her  State  government.  Vv'e 
find  Bismarck  plotting  to  rob  the  German  States  of  their 
State  governments,  and  concentrate  all  in  the  hands  of  three 
or  four  men  that  they  may  have  absolute  power  over  the 


5108  REPLY  TO  MR  FROUDE'S  ''LAST  WORDS:'' 

lives,  and,  certainl}^,  over  the  liberties  of  their  fellow-subjects. 
AVe  find  nothing  like  the  American  Constitution,  for  indi- 
vidual libei'ty,  elsewhere.  We  find  nothing  like  the  Ameri- 
can Constitution  in  that  grand  pi-inci2:>le,  that  the  wisdom  of 
the  whole  nation  is  appealed  to ;  every  man  is  asked  his 
opinion  :  '*  Who  is  the  best  statesman  ? — who  is  the  wisest, 
the  bravest,  and  the  most  virtuous  man  ? — tell  us  who  he  is ; 
and  we  will  put  him  in  the  Pi-esidency,  and  make  him,  for 
the  time  being,  supreme  magistrate  and  ruler  of  the  land." 
If  you  go  back  to  the  most  ancient  nations,  you  will  find 
notliing  of  this,  until  you  come  upon  the  ancient  Celtic 
Constitution  of  Ireland.  There,  my  friends,  will  you  find 
the  very  model  and  tj^pe  of  that  glorious  government  which 
Washington,  and  Jetierson,  and  the  other  heroes  of  your 
revolutionary  era  established  for  the  happiness  of  this  land. 
They  found  the  model  of  the  American  Constitution  in  the 
ancient  Celtic  Constitution  of  Ireland.  The  land  was 
divided  into  five  great  portions ;  and  each  portion  w^as  rec- 
ogTiized  as  an  independent  State.  INIunster,  Connaught, 
Ulster,  Leinster,  and  Meath,  wei-e  perfectly  independent, 
one  from  another.  They  were  governed  by  great  chiefs,  who 
were  elected  by  every  man  in  the  land.  Every  man  had  his 
voice  and  his  vote.  The  tribe  elected  their  chief.  The 
tribe  elected  a  man  who  was  to  succeed  the  chieftain.  And 
these  five  great  nations,  or  "  Five  Bloods,"  as  they  were* 
called,  enjoyed,  on  the  Democratic  principle,  their  State 
Kights  and  State  independence.  Then,  at  certain  times, 
they  had  the  election  of  their  President.  They  came  to- 
gether and  elected  the  bravest  and  best,  wisest  and  most 
prudent  and  most  virtuous  man,  and  placed  him  upon  the 
throne  in  Tara,  as  universal  King,  or  ^Inb-niSj  of  ^H  Ireland. 
He  governed  the  various  States ;  but  they  were  careful,  and 
he  was  careful,  to  respect  their  independence.  There  was 
no  centralization.  The  King  of  Munster,  the  Prince  of 
Ulster,  the  King  of  Connaught,  the  Kings  of  Meath  and 
Leinster,  rode  down  from  the  slopes  of  Tara, — after  having 
elected  their  supreme  m-onarcli, — they  rode  down  as  free, 
as  independent  in  State  rights,  as  if  they  had  never  elected 
a  chief  to  govern  them  all.  No  matter  wliat  were  the  faults, 
— and  they  were  many, — of  that  old  Irisli  Constitution,  I 


REPLY  TO  MR  FROUDE'8  ''LAST  WORDS:'  209 

claim  for  it  this  glory,  in  this  century  of  ours, — that  the 
American  Constitution  is  nothing  more  or  less  than  a  faith- 
ful copy  of  the  old  Irish  laws,  under  which  our  fathers 
lived,  in  peace  and  in  haj)piness,  until  in  a  moment  of  the 
anger  of  God,^ — even  as  fire  was  let  down  upon  the  cities  of 
old, — the  Saxon  was  let  in,  as  a  curse,  upon  Ireland. 

If  the  time  permitted,  I  could  contrast  the  freedom  and 
equality  of  these  grand  Republican  principles  of  the  Irish 
Constitution, — I  could  contrast  its  workings  with  the  giind- 
ing,  absolute  tyranny  of  that  feudal  system  under  which 
England  was  governed, — and  w^hich  they  endeavored  to  es- 
tablish in  Ireland.  The  King  was  absolute, — lord  and  mas- 
ter of  every  inch  of  land  :  it  was  his, — his  personal  property; 
and  any  man  who  held  land,  held  it  by  virtue  of  a  grant 
from  the  King,  on  condition  of  doing  v/hatever  service  the 
King  commanded  him  to  do.  In  other  words,  he  held  it 
under  a  condition  of  slavery.  Then,  the  owner  of  the  land 
held  the  tenants  upon  the  land  as  mere  serfs  or  slaves.  If 
he  injiired  them  in  person  or  property,  there  was  no  redress. 
Their  domestic  affairs  were  left  under  his  control.  If  a  son 
or  daughter  of  a  family  died,  he  could  seize  upon  their  por- 
tion ;  he  could  seize  upon  their  property  and  squander  it ; 
and  no  one  coukl  call  him  to  account.  The  King  of  England 
could,  and  often  did,  beggar  the  first  families  in  the  land ; 
and  no  one  could  call  him  to  account ;  because  by  the  feu- 
dal law,  the  King  was  not  accountable  for  whatever  he  did. 

Well,  my  friends,  there  was  a  gi-eat  laugh,  the  other  night 
(in  "  Association  Hall,"  I  believe  they  call  it ; — I  was 
thinking  it  was  "  Conciliation  Hall," — remembering  the  old 
places) ;  there  was  a  great  laugh  raised  by  the  English  his- 
torian at  the  expense  of  the  poor  Irish  Friar.  "  Oh,"  said 
he,  "  whatever  else  Father  Burke  is,  he  is  a  wonderful  man 
at  totting  up  numbers."  Then  he  was  kind  enough  to  make 
a  tot  for  me  that  I  never  made  for  myself.  I  asserted  (and 
not  upon  my  own  authority;  but  I  expressly  said  that  I 
heard  men  say),  that  there  w^ere,  jDrobably,  fourteen  niillions 
of  human  beings,  of  Irish  descent  and  Irish  blood,  in  this 
land  of  America.  Making  up  the  account,  briefly,  with  the 
millions  that  fled  from  Ireland,  I  asserted  that,  perhaps,  there 
were  eight  millions  of  our  people  who  came  to  this  land. 


210  REPLY  TO  MB.  FBOUDEPS  ''LAST  WOBDS:' 

Mr.  Froude  totted  the  eiglit  Diillions  up  to  fourteen,  and  he 
made  a  tot  of  twentj^-two  millions.  That  had  not  entered 
into  my  head  ;  but  he  was  kind  enough  to  lend  me  the  use 
of  his  brains  and  his  figures.  Then  Mr.  Froude  comes  out 
with  his  account.  According  to  him,  of  all  the  millions  in 
America,  there  are  only  four  millions,  altogether,  with  a 
drop  of  Irish  blood  in  their  veins!  Well,  perhaps  I  over- 
shot the  mark  a  little.  I  protest  to  you,  I  do  not  think  I 
did.  I  think  that,  if  the  men,  women,  and  children  of  Irish 
descent, — in  some  way  or  other  of  Irish  blood, — were  put 
on  one  side,  in  these  United  States  of  America, — that  men 
v/ould  be  greatly  surprised  at  the  millions  they  would  foot 
up.  We  were,  in  Ireland,  nearly  nine  millions  and  a  quar- 
ter, in  184G-7.  There  are  not  much  more  than  half  that 
number  in  Ireland  to-day  ;  and  there  have  not  been,  for  some 
years.  It  is  acknowledged  that  a  million  and  a  half  or  two 
millions  may  have  been  swept  away  by  the  visitation  of 
God, — by  the  terrible  famine  and  by  the  pestilence  that  en- 
sued. But,  still,  you  have  to  account  for  three  or  four  mil- 
lions. They  must  have  emigi-ated, — have  gone  somewhere  : 
they  did  not  fly  up  to  the  moon.  Then,  since  that  year  of 
'47,  every  year  has  sent  out  to  America  its  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  Irishmen.  They  must  be  foimd  somewhere. 
Then,  Irishmen  have  families,  like  other  peoj)le ;  and,  gen- 
erally speaking,  good  long  families  too,  God  bless  them  ! 
But  I  need  not  enter  upon  this  subject;  it  has  already  been 
settled  by  statistics.  In  a  popular  Irish  journal  of  New 
York,  this  very  week,  it  is  stated  that  there  must  be  at  least 
more  than  twelve  millions  of  Irish  descent  in  America ;  and 
I  hold  that  twelve  millions  is  not  so  far  from  fourteen  as 
four  millions  is  from  twelve.  If  I  made  a  mistake,  I  only 
overshot  the  mark  by  two  millions  :  Mr.  Froude  undershot 
it  by  eight  millions.  And  I  thank  God  that  there  are,  in 
America,  eight  millions  more  Irish  people,  and  people  of 
Irish  blood,  than  Mr.  Froude  thought.  It  is  a  portentous 
state  of  affairs  for  the  learned  gentleman.  Perhaps,  if  he 
Icnew  that  his  four  millions  meant  something  more  like  four- 
teen, he  would  have  been  more  careful,  and  have  taktm 
thought,  before  he  came  to  America  to  blackguard  us. 

The  next  great  point  that  Mr.  Froude  makes  against  me 


REPLY  TO  MR.  FROUDE'S  ''LAST  WORDS."'  211 

is  where  lie  states  that  I  said,  that  when  the  Irish  rose  in 
the  "  rebellion,"  as  he  calls  it,  of  1641, — I  denied  that  they 
massacred  thirty-eight  thousand  Protestants.  My  friends, 
you  know  there  are  two  ways  of  looking  at  everything,  and 
there  are  two  names  for  almost  everything,  even  the  name 
of  a  man.  A  man's  friends  call  him  the  finest  fellow  in  the 
world, — a  fine,  hearty  fellow, — and  his  enemies  say  he  is  a 
dirty  blackguard.  There  was  a  rising  in  Ireland,  in  1G41  ; 
— Mr.  Froude  calls  it  a  "rebellion."  The  circumstances  of 
that  rising  were  these  :  The  Parliament  of  England  rebelled 
against  their  King ;  the  people  of  England  rebelled  against 
their  King ;  the  Scotch  rebelled  against  their  King,  though 
he  was  one  of  their  own  countrymen,  and  had  their  Scotch 
blood  in  his  veins.  The  Irish  people  arose,  in  the  name  of 
the  King ;  and  they  demanded  of  him,  as  a  reward  (literally 
and  truly,  I  can  call  it  nothing  else,) — they  rose  in  the  name 
of  the  King,  and  demanded  leave  to  live  in  their  own  land, 
and  the  free  exercise  of  their  own  religion.  The  King  prom- 
ised he  would  give  this  to  them ;  and  this  promise  was  called 
the  "  graces  "  of  the  King.  A  certain  Irish  noble, — Sir 
Phelim  O'Neill, — headed  that  rising;  and  lie  produced  a 
document,  with  the  Royal  Seal  of  the  Majesty  of  England  to 
it ;  and  he  told  the  Irish  people  that  he  had  authority  from 
the  King  to  call  upon  them  to  rise.  That  document,  my 
friends,  vras  a  forgery,  like  many  another  document.  It  was 
as  gi*eat  a  forgery  as  the  "  Bull "  of  Pope  Adrian,  that  pre- 
tended to  give  Ireland  to  England, — as  confounded  a  forgery 
as  ever  came  out  of  hell.  Sir  Phelim  O'Neill,  when  he  was 
dying,  acknowledged  that  that  document  vv^as  a  forgery. 
But  the  Irish  people  believed  him  when  he  said  it  was  a  gen- 
uine document ;  and  they  rose  in  the  name  of  the  King,  be- 
lieving in  the  commission  that  Sir  Phelim  O'Neill  produced. 
And  Mr.  Froude  calls  this  "  rebellion."  because  this  was  a 
forged  document.  Now,  suppose  a  man  came  into  yovir 
house,  produced  a  bank  check  and  said,  "  \Yiil  you  cash  that 
for  me  ?  "  You  look  at  it  and  sa}^,  "  Is  it  all  right  ?  "  He 
tells  you  that  it  is  ail  right;  and,  believing  it  to  be  all  right, 
you  cash  it.  Then  you  go  to  the  bank,  present  it  for  pay- 
ment, and  discover  that  it  is  a  forgery :  and  the  banker 
takes  you  by  the  collar  and  says :  "  You  thundering  robber ! 


212  REPLY  TO  MB.  FR0UDEP8  ''LAST   WORDS." 

do  you  want  to  rob  me  ?  "  Why,  you  would  say  :  "  I  am 
very  sorry  for  it.  I  have  lost  my  money.  But  do  not  call 
me  a  thief ;  because  I  did  not  know  that  it  Avas  a  forgery." 
Now,  Mr.  Froude  calls  this  rising  in  the  King's  name,  in 
1641,  a  "  rebellion,"  under  a  document  to  which  was  at- 
tached, fraudulently,  a  seal  (but  still  the  real  Seal  of  Eng- 
land) ;  and  though  the  Irish  people  knew  nothing  about  it, 
he  turns  on  us  and  calls  us  rebels  for  this !  And  this  is  the 
first  thing  that  he  asserts, — that  the  rising  in  '41  was  a  "re- 
bellion." But  he  adds,  a  moment  after,  that  the  Catholics 
arose,  and  that  the  very  first  thing  they  did  was  to  slaughter 
thirty-eight  thousand  Protestants.  And  he  gives,  as  author- 
ity. Sir  John  Temple.  Well,  my  friends,  Mr.  Froude  knew 
very  well,  when  he  was  quoting  that  authority,  that  there 
was  another  authority  that  said  there  were  two  hundred 
thousand  Protestants  killed  !  Two  hundred  thousand !  Sir 
William  Petty  (whom  this  learned  gentleman  quotes  as  an 
authority  several  times,  "  Sir  William  says  this,"  and  "  Sir 
William  says  that ;")  Sir  William  Petty  says  that  there  was 
great  cruelty.  Mr.  Froude  does  not  quote  him;  he  pares 
the  "massacre"  down  to  thirty-eight  thousand.  And  do 
you  know  the  reason  ?  The  secret  is,  Sir  William  Petty 
overshot  the  mark,  and  made  out  that  there  were  more  Prot- 
estants killed,  that  year,  than  there  were  in  all  Ireland! 
All  the  Protestants  in  Ireland  did  not  come  up  to  two  hun- 
dred thousand,  at  the  time.  Sir  William  forgot  this  ;  and 
he  said  two  hundred  thousand  were  massacred ;  but  ]Mr. 
Froude  remembered  it  well,  and  would  not  quote  him.  He 
thought,  "  I  will  not  quote  him  ;  but  I  v/ill  quote  the  other 
liar,  that  says  there  were  thirty-eight  thousand."  Is  it  not 
a  strange  thing,  my  friends,  that  at  that  very  time,' — in  that 
very  year, — a  Presbyterian  minister  went  through  Ireland, 
for  the  express  purpose  of  finding  out  how  many  people  were 
killed ;  and  he  declares  that  there  were  only  four  thousand 
one  hundred  at  the  very  outside ;  but  he  does  not  believe 
that  there  were  so  many.  And,  yet,  this  man  comes  to 
America,  and  repeats  again,  and  emphatically,  the  old  lie, 
that  has  been  exploded  years  and  years  ago ;  and  he  asks  the 
American  people  to  believe  that  we  Irish  cannot  govern  our- 
selves ;  for  he  says, — "This  is  what  they  did  before;  and 


BEPLY  TO  MB.  FROUDE'S  ''LAST   WOBDS:'  213 

this  is  what  they  will  do  again,  if  yon  give  them  the  cnrse 
of  '  Home  Rnle,'  and  the  power  of  making  their  own  laws  !  " 
Bnt,  on  the  other  hand,  we  have  the  account  of  another 
massacre,  in  which  three  thousand  Catholics  were  killed  by 
the  garrison  of  Carrickfergus.  Mr.  Fronde  says :  "  Oh  ! 
Father  Burke  knows  how  to  tot  up  well ;  he  multiplies  his 
numbers  by  a  hundred.  There  were  only  thirty  persons 
killed,  and  he  says,  *  three  thousand ; '  that  is  a  hundred 
times  thirty  !  "  Well,  my  friends,  according  to  Mr.  Froude, 
there  were  only  thirty  2^ersons  killed  ;  but  according  to  a  Prot- 
estant author,  who  wrote  shortly  aftei',  there  were  thirty  fam- 
ilies j  and  there  is  a  great  deal  of  difference  between  thirty 
persons  and  thirty  Irish  families ,  of  ten  or  twelve  persons 
each.  But  I  meet  him  thus : — within  ten  years  after  the 
event  took  2:>lace,  there  was  an  official  account,  printed  and 
published  in  London,  by  an  Englishman,  asserting  that  there 
were  three  thousand  men,  women,  and  children  murdered; 
— that  the  man  who  published  that  account  publicly  defied 
any  one  to  contradict  it ;  and  the  very  men  who  were  there 
in  Ireland  at  the  time, — who  had  an  interest  in  contradict- 
ing it, — were  afraid  to  contradict  this  man  :  and  none  ever 
gainsaid  it.  Can  it  be  true  that  there  were  only  thirty 
people  slain,  as  Mr.  Froude  says  there  v/ere, — when  a  man 
came  out,  within  ten  years  after  the  event,  in  London,  and 
published  his  account,  and  said  there  w-ere  three  thousand 
people  killed,  and  defied  anybody  to  contradict  him.  And 
each  of  the  interested  parties  knew  well  that  this  man  had 
made  such  a  statement ;  yet  not  a  man  of  them  ever  contra- 
dicted him. 

Mr.  Froude  attaches  great  importance  to  this  pretended 
massacre  of  '41 ;  and  he  makes  his  usual  appeal.  He  says  : 
"  Let  a  Commission  be  sent  over  to  Dublin  to  search  the 
State  papers ;  let  the  Lord  Chancellor  be  on  it ;  let  this  lord 
and  that  lord  be  on  it ;  and  they  will  find  that  I  am  right,  and 
that  Father  Burke  is  wrong."  I  will  answer  the  whole  thing 
at  once.  I  will  not  go  rummaging  among  State  papers;  for 
the  majority  of  these  State  papers  are  infernal  lies,  written 
by  courtiers,  interested  men, — men  who  at  the  time  were  en- 
gaged in  plundering  the  Irish,  and  were  anxious  to  find 
some  excuse  for  plundering  them, — accusing  them  of  every 


214  REPLY  TO  MR.  FROUDES  ''LAST  WORDS:' 

crime, — just  as  Mr.  FrOude  himself  is  doing, — in  order  to 
justify  the  asking  of  a  verdict  against  them  ; — so  these  men 
that  wrote  the  bulk  of  these  State  papers  were  acknowledged 
interested  parties,  whose  interest  it  was  to  abuse  and  vilify 
the  Irish.  I  will  not  go  to  these  State  papers,  and  take  their 
bigoted  statements.  But,  there  is  the  historical  fact,  that, 
when  the  accusation  was  made,  at  the  very  time  it  was  pub- 
lished, it  was  refuted,  and  the  refutation  of  it  was  never  so 
much  as  questioned  or  denied  by  the  very  men  who  had  a 
hand  in  the  concoction  of  that  pretended  "  massacre." 

Mr.  Froude,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  repeats  and  reiterates 
the  charge  of  cowardice  against  the  Irish.  In  answer- 
ing my  lectures,  Mr.  Froude  said  that  he  never  doubted 
Irish  courage, — he  never  denied  it.  But,  last  night,  in 
Philadelphia,  he  repeated  his  statement,  that  the  Irish 
did  not  know  how  to  fight.  It  is  strange,  too,  for  he 
acknowledges,  and  says  in  another  part  of  his  lecture,  that 
all  the  evils  of  Ireland, — all  the  miseries  of  Ireland, — arose 
out  of  the  irrepressible  love  the  people  had  for  fighting ; 
and,  in  another  place,  he  comes  out  and  says  they  did  not 
know  how  to  fight:  and  he  asserts  again  that  the  Irish 
troops  did  not  behave  well  at  the  battle  of  the  Boyne. 
But  what  then  ?  What  have  I  to  say  ?  What  I  have  to 
say  is  not  on  Catholic  evidence,  nor  on  Irish  evidence,  but 
it  is  on  English  Protestant  authority.  The  Duke  of  Ber- 
\\dck,  an  Englishman,  declares, — and  he  was  in  command  at 
the  battle  of  the  Boyne, — that  James — (you  all  know  the 
name  we  give  him) — King  James  had  brought  all  the 
French  veteran  troops  around  him,  to  guard  his  person; 
and  he  left  the  brunt  of  the  battle  to  fall  upon  his  Irish 
regiments.  King  James  on  that  day, — between  the  French 
and  Irish  and  all, — was  only  able  to  put  twenty-three 
thousand  men  into  the  field  ;  whereas  the  muster-roll  of 
William  of  Orange  totted  up  to  fifty  thousand  men,  and 
fifty  pieces  of  artillery.  King  James  had  only  twenty-three 
thousand  men,  all  told,  and  twelve  pieces  of  cannon ;  but  he 
sent  away  six  of  them  the  night  before  the  battle  ;  so  that 
there  were  only  six  left.  William  crossed  the  Boyne  ;  and 
the  Duke  of  Berwick  tells  us  that  the  Irish  infantry  and 
cavalry  charged  that  entire  army  ten  times,  before  they  re- 


BEPLT  TO  MB.  FBOUDE'S  ''LAST   WOBDSy  215 

tired  from  the  field.  Ten  distinct  times,  he  says,  the  Irish 
infantry  charged, — filing  themselves  upon  them,  like  lions  or 
tigers.  And  it  was  only  when  they  found  that  it  was  not 
in  the  power  of  human  beings,  for  so  small  an  army,  reduced 
to  a  few  thousand  men,  to  make  an  impression  upon  the 
ranks  of  fifty  thousand  veterans — it  was  only  then  that  they 
retired  from  the  field.  But  we  have  the  list  of  killed  and 
wounded,  which  is  the  surest  test,  whether  men  behave  well 
in  a  battle  or  not.  AVe  find  that  the  Irish  gave  more  than 
they  got ;  for  we  find  that  the  list  of  killed  and  wounded  in 
the  Irish  army  did  not  come  up  to  that  of  the  English  army 
by  nearly  a  thousand  men. 

Take  the  siege  of  Athlone.  Mr.  Froude  tells  us  that,  at 
Athlone,  the  Irish  made  no  stand,  but  gave  up  a  position 
which,  in  the  hands  of  brave  men,  would  be  impregnable. 
Did  they  ?  At  the  first  siege  of  Athlone, — for  there  were 
two  sieges,  as  at  Limerick, — in  the  first  siege  of  Athlone, 
Colonel  Richard  Grace,  with  eight  hundred  men,  held  the 
town  against  the  whole  English  army,  and  drove  them  back. 
In  the  second  siege  of  Athlone,  Colonel  Fitzgerald  com- 
manded four  hundred  men,  on  the  Leinster  side  of  the  Shan- 
non ;  and  held  the  "  English  town,"  as  it  was  called,  with 
these  four  hundred  men.  There  was  an  army  of  from  fifteen 
to  eighteen  thousand  against  him ;  and  he  held  that  town, 
until,  out  of  the  four  huudred  men,  there  were  only  two 
hundred  of  the  garrison  left.  Every  man  of  them  saw  his 
fellow-soldier  fall  by  his  side ;  and  still  they  fought.  And 
when  they  did  retreat,  they  cut  down  an  arch  of  the  bridge 
that  spanned  the  Shannon  between  them  and  the  Connaught 
side  of  the  town  of  Athlone.  When  the  whole  English  be- 
sieging army  brought  their  tremendous  artillery  to  cover 
their  troops  as  they  flung  planks  across,  that  they  might  fall 
upon  that  handful  of  two  hundred  Irish  soldiers,  then  a 
party, — some  twenty  men, — came  out  from  Fitzgerald's  gar- 
rison, and  in  spite  of  the  English  artillery,  in  spite  of 
their  musketry,  and  under  their  very  eyes,  they  tore  the 
planks  up  again,  and  flung  them  into  the  stream.  And  out 
of  the  twenty  men  only  two  returned  into  the  city.  If  jMr. 
Froude  calls  this  cowardice,  I  do  not  know  what  he  under- 
stands by  courage.     I  think  it  would  be  time  enough  for  the 


216  REPLY  TO  MR.  FBOUDE'S  ''LAST  WORDS.'' 

learned  gentleman  to  accuse  the  men  of  Ireland  of  being 
cowards,  when  he  finds  that  he  can  accuse  the  women  of 
Ireland  of  beuig  cowards.  When  William  of  Orange  laid 
siege  to  Limerick, — in  the  first  siege, — he  battered  down 
the  walls,  until  he  made  a  breach  thirty-six  feet  wide.  He 
then  picked  out  twelve  thousand  of  his  best  soldiers,  and 
sent  them  to  enter  the  city  through  the  broken  walls.  And 
when  they  climbed  the  ruined  ramparts,  they  found  the 
women  of  Limerick, — the  pure-minded,  holy  maidens  and 
glorious  mothers  of  Limerick, — standing  side  by  side  and 
shoulder  to  shoulder  with  their  brothers,  their  husbands,  and 
their  fathers.  And  the  women  of  Limerick  beat  back  the 
twelve  thousand  Englishmen  ;  so  that  when  they  withdrew, 
they  left  two  thousand  of  their  dead  before  the  walls  of  the 
grand  old  city. 

Moreover,  the  learned  gentleman — (I  declare  I  am  begin- 
ning to  doubt  whether  he  is  a  learned  gentleman  at  all) — 
says  that,  when  James  the  First  confiscated  six  counties  of 
"Ulster, — oh  !  he  says,  it  was  all  a  piece  of  good  nature  on 
the  part  of  James  to  turn  the  Irish  out  of  their  land ;  for 
he  let  them  all  in  again.  It  is  true,  he  says,  that  he  confis- 
cated two  millions  five  hundred  thousand  acres  of  Irish 
land  ;  but  he  gave  two  millions  of  it  back,  and  kept  only  five 
hundred  thousand  acres  for  the  Scotch  and  English  that  he 
brought  over.  Well,  first  of  all,  I  do  not  understand  the 
good-natured  playfulness  of  turning  men  out  of  their  pro- 
perty. Even  if  he  did  let  them  back  again,  I  think  it  was  a 
great  inconvenience.  How  would  you  like  it  yourselves  ? 
Suppose  the  United  States  Marshal  came  to  your  door,  and 
ordered  you  out  of  your  store,  or  premises,  and  had  soldiers 
to  oblige  you  to  go  out,  and  kept  you  walking  about  the 
streets  three  or  four  days,  and  then  came  and  said :  "  Oh, 
my  fine  fellow,  you  can  go  back  again ;  "  how  would  you  like 
it  ?  The  learned  gentleman  (as  they  call  him)  glosses  over 
the  real  state  of  this  business.  According  to  him,  the  Irish 
got  back  two  millions  of  acres  out  of  two  millions  and  a  half. 
May  I  ask,  even  if  this  were  true,  (and  it  is  not  true,) — 
what  right  had  James  to  keep  the  other  half  million  ?  If  a 
man  had  twenty  dollars,  and  a  pickpocket  took  that  twenty 
dollars  out  of  his  pocket,  and  then  gave  him  back  fifteen, 
the  first  thing  he  would  ask  him  is  to  give  back  the  other 


REPLY  TO  MR.  FROUDE'S  ''LAST   WORDS:'  217 

five.  But,  according  to  Mr.  "Froude,  t]ie  Irish  were  benev- 
olently treated.  They  were  robbed  of  two  millions  and  a 
half  acres  of  choice  land ;  but  they  got  "back  two  millions  ; 
and  so  they  onglit  to  be  happy  and  contented.  James,  he 
says,  did  not  absolutely  take  away  these  two  million  and  a 
half  acres.  According  to  Mr.  Fronde,  the  Irish  got  them 
back,  provided  they  took  the  oath  of  allegiance?  and  the 
oath  of  allegiance  was  simply  an  oath  to  be  good  and  peace- 
ful citizens !  But  there  was  another  oath  that  they  were 
expected  to  take,  and  were  obliged  to  take  ;  and  that  was  the 
'*  Oath  of  Supremacy,"  by  which  they  abjured  the  Catholic 
religion ;  and,  in  any  case,  a  man  could  not  get  his  land  back 
until  he  declared  his  disbelief  in  the  religion  of  his  fathers, 
— until  he  practically  became  an  infidel  or  a  Protestant. 
Mr.  Froude  does  not  mention  it ;  but  I  will  tell  you  who 
mentions  it.  Cox,  the  historian,  mentions  it ; — the  man 
who  wrote  the  history  of  the  times  tells  us,  ajid  gives  authority 
for  it ; — he  tells  us  tliat  it  was  in  the  written  instructions  to 
the  Protestants  and  Presbyterians  that  they  were  not  to  let 
the  Irish  back,  unless  they  took  the  "  Oath  of  Supremacy." 
And  when  they  had  swallowed  the  pill,  had  become  Protes- 
tants,— perjured  themselves, — when  the  tempter  had  bribed 
them  to  stain  their  souls  with  sin, — in  what  capacity  were 
they  let  back  ?  That  is  the  question.  The  English  settlers 
found  that  the  land  was  too  much  for  them  ;  they  found  that 
they  could  not  till  it,  and  work  it ;  and  that  they  could  not 
get  the  Irish  to  do  as  the  slaves  and  serfs  of  England  did. 
So  they  turned  to  the  King,  and  said :  "  Where  is  the  use 
of  giving  us  all  this  land,  unless  you  allow  us  to  employ  the 
Irish  people  who  are  here  to  work  it  ?  "  Then  he  gave  them 
leave  to  get  the  Irish  to  work  it ;  and  let  them  build  their 
mud-cabins,  and  to  be  cottiers  or  tenants  on  their  own  inher- 
itance, provided  that  they  would  first  swear  away  their  re- 
ligion. This  is  the  real  state  of  the  case.  Nevertheless  Mr. 
Froude  says  James  was  so  good,  and  so  kind,  and  so  benign, 
that  when  he  took  away  two  millions  and  a  half  of  acres, 
he  gave  them  all  back  again,  only  asking  the  original  owners 
to  take  the  oath  of  allegiance !  There  are  two  ways  of  tell- 
ing a  story;  and  I  am  beginning  to  think  there  are  more 
than  two  ways  of  writing  history. 
10 


218  BEPLT  TO  MR.  FBOUDE'S  ''LAST  WOBDS.'' 

Then  Mr.  Froude  comes  to  tlie  question  of  the  Parliament, 
• — the  "  Irish  Parliament,"  he  says  ; — and  he  gives  his  argu- 
ment ;  on  which  I  take  him  up,  because  it  is  the  back-bone 
of  his  whole  case.  He  says  to  the  American  people  :  "  Please 
give  me  your  verdict,  and  say,  once  for  all,  to  the  Irish  in 
America,  to  stop  their  nonsense  about  the  independence  of 
Ireland  ;  and,  as  to  the  Irish  at  home,  tell  them  to  be  quiet, — 
to  be  good  and  peaceful, — and  let  us,  English,  make  their 
laws  for  them  ;  because,  wdien  they  had  the  power  to  make 
their  own  laws,  they  did  not  know  how  to  make  them.  They 
made  bad  laws;  and  the  proof  lies  here: — In  1782,  England 
granted  a  total  and  complete  independence  to  the  Irish  Par- 
liament." That  is  quite  true ;  but  how  did  she  grant  it  ? 
She  granted  it  when  the  "  Volunteers  "  drew  up  their  can- 
non,— had  them  loaded, — had  their  torches  lighted,  and 
around  the  mouth  of  each  cannon  a  label  with  these  words 
written  on  it : — "  Freedom  for  Ireland  or  else — "  So,  my 
learned  friend  says:  "England  granted  Ireland  her  inde- 
pendence in  1782,"  just  in  the  same  way  as  you  would  give 
up  your  purse  to  a  man  you  met  on  the  street,  who  might 
draw  out  of  his  pocket  a  Derringer  revolver,  and  put  it  to 
your  throat,  so  that  you  felt  the  cold  steel,  and  might  say  to 
you:  "Give  me  that  purse,  or  take  the  contents  of  this  !" 
You  might  give  it  up,  and  then  say :  "  What  a  fine  liberal 
fellow  I  was  to  give  that  man  my  purse  !  "  Ireland  brought 
the  cannon  right  to  the  heart  of  England  in  '82,  and  said : 
"  Come,  now,  the  question  at  issue  between  us  is  this :  I 
want  free  trade ;  I  want  the  power  of  making  my  own  laws. 
Give  it  to  me  ;  or  take  the  contents  of  this."  England  gave 
it ;  and  then  Mr.  Froude  comes  over  to  America  and  says  : 
'*  We  were  so  good, — we  gave  them  their  independence  ;  but 
they  made  a  bad  use  of  it."  It  was  only  sixteen  years  from 
'82  to  '98  ;  and  Mr.  Froude  says  the  Irish,  being  allowed  to 
make  their  own  laws,  went  "  from  anarchy  to  conspiracy,  and 
from  conspiracy  into  rebellion."  I  answer :  First,  Mr. 
Froude  is  wrong  when  he  says  that  it  was  the  independence 
of  '82  and  the  political  agitation  of  the  time,  that  sprang  up 
with  it,  that  occasioned  the  Kebellion  of  '98.  I  answer,  se- 
condly, that  the  independent  Parliament  of  '82  did  not  re- 
present the  Irish  people.    In  that  Irish  Parliament  there  were 


IIEPLT  TO  MR.  FROUDE'S  ''LAST   WORDS:'  219 

three  hnndred  members  of  the  Irish  House  of  Commons  ;  and 
out  of  this  three  hundred,  there  were  only  seventy-two  elected 
by  the  people.  All  the  rest  were  the  nominees  of  the  "  pocket 
boroughs,"  or  "  rotten  boroughs,"  so  called  ;  because,  really, 
all  the  landlords  of  the  land,  that  owned  them,  picked  up 
every  fellow  that  they  thought  would  vote  according  to  their 
wishes  and  desires.  There  were  only  seventy-two  elected  by 
the  people.  Who  were  the  people,  may  I  ask  ?  There  were, 
in  that  year,  verging  up  to  three  millions  of  Catholics  in  Ire- 
land, and  between  five  hundred  and  six  hundred  thousand 
Protestants.  Whom  did  the  Irish  Parliament  represent? 
Here  you  have,  on  one  side,  half  a  million  of  comparative 
strangers, — men  who  came  into  Ulster  under  James  the 
First ;  Cromwellites,  who  were  settled  in  Leinster  and  INIuns- 
ter,  and  protected  in  their  occupation  by  Cromwell  and  by 
his  successors.  Were  these  men  the  Irish  nation  ?  I^To  ; 
there  was  not  a  drop  of  Irish  blood  in  their  veins.  They 
had  no  Irish  sympathies  with  them.  Who  were  the  Irish 
nation?  Three  millions  of  the  Irish  people,  who  remained 
firm  as  a  -rock :  first,  to  the  religion  of  their  fathers,  and 
secondly,  to  the  love  that  they  bore  the  green  old  land, 
that  was  their  mother  ?  They  were  the  Irish  people — the 
nation ;  and  that  Parliament  of  '82  represented  only  five 
hundred  thousand  strangers.  Not  a  single  Catholic  in. 
Ireland  sat  in  that  Parliament ;  not  a  single  Catholic  in 
Ireland  had  even  a  vote  to  return  a  member  to  that  Parlia- 
ment. They  might  as  well  have  been  wild  Indians ;  they 
might  as  well  have  been  brute  beasts.  They  had  no  recog- 
nition; and  I  deny  that  the  Parliament  of  82, — free  and  in- 
dependent, and  in  a  great  measure,  patriotic  as  it  was, — I 
deny  that  it  was  a  representative  of  the  Irish  nation.  Grat- 
tan  himself  seems  to  have  felt  remorse  when  he  was  claiming 
the  independence  of  the  representation  of  so  paltry  a  faction ; 
for  he  said,  "  I  never  will  ask  the  independence  of  six  hun- 
dred thousand  Irishmen,  while  I  leave  three  millions  of 
them  in  slavery."  If  that  Parliament  failed ; — even  if  the 
experiment  was  a  failure ; — I  deny  that  it  was  "  Home  Eule  " 
at  all.  I  deny  that  it  was  an  Irish  Parliament ;  and  I  hold 
that  Mr.  Froude  has  no  business  to  tell  us,  because  a  few 
Protestants  and  Orangemen,  in  1782,  did  not  know  how  to 


220   BEPLT  TO  MB.  FROUDE'S  ''LAST   WORDS:' 

go^ei-n  Ireland,  tlia.t,  therefore,  the  Irish  people  do  not 
know  how  to  elect  members  and  make  their  own  laws.  But, 
my  friends,  bad  as  that  Parliament  was, — corrupt  as  it  was, 
— I  deny  that  it  was  the  cause  of  the  Rebellion  of  '98.  I 
deny  that  *'  political  agitation,  leading  to  conspiracy,"  was 
the  cause  of  that  Rebellion.  No  ;  no  !  So  long  as  the  Muse 
of  History  writes,  so  long  will  it  go  down  to  future  genera- 
tions, that  it  was  the  premeditated  design  of  the  Prime  Minis- 
ter of  England  to  precipitate  the  action  of  the  Govei^nment, 
and  to  drive  the  Irish  people  into  the  Rebellion  of  '98.  It 
was  done  calmly  and  coolly  and  for  a  purpose.  William  Pitt 
resolved  to  i^ass  the  bill  of  Union,  and  rob  the  Irish  people 
of  their  Parliament ;  and  he  could  not  do  it  unless  he  dis- 
turbed the  country  by  anarchy  and  war.  He  deliberately 
goaded  the  Irish  people  into  reljellion.  He  sent  over  troops 
to  Ireland,  and  fsinatics  from  England.  He  brought  from 
Germany  the  ferocious  Hessians,  who  were  quartered  on  the 
people,  and  committed  such  ravages  amongst  them, — burning 
their  houses,  killing  their  men,  and  worse  than  killing  their 
women, — that  the  Irish  were  maddened  into  rebellion. 
Here  is  the  proof  of  it, — here,  from  the  gallant  Sir  Ralph 
Abercrombie,  who  Avas  made  Commander-in-Chief  in  Ireland, 
the  Spring  before  the  Rebellion.  He  found  the  army  that 
he  came  to  command  in  such  a  state,  that,  after  reproaching 
them  for  their  wickedness  and  insubordination,  he  gave  up 
the  command,  and  washed  his  hands  clean  out  of  it.  Sir 
John  Moore,  the  hero  of  Corunna,  gives  his  testimony  to  the 
same  effect.  Lord  Moira,  an  Englishman,  who  gave  evidence 
before  the  House  of  Lords,  deposes  deliberately  to  the  cruelty 
and  ferocity  of  the  Hessian  soldiers,  who  were  let  loose  upon 
the  Irish  people,  and  luaddened  them  into  rebellion.  Take 
the  case  of  the  celebrated  Father  John  Murphy,  who  headed 
the  rebels  in  '98.  He  was  a  quiet,  unpretending  priest,  say 
ing  his  "  ofl&ce,"  visiting  the  sick,  going  about  among  the  peo- 
ple, taking  care  of  his  chapel  and  chapel-house,  and  going 
through  all  the  duties  of  an  ordinary,  hard-working  parish 
priest  in  the  country.  He  was  at  a  sick  call,  attending  at 
the  bedside  of  a  dying  person ;  and,  when  he  came  back,  he 
found  his  chapel  burned  to  the  ground,  and  the  jooor  people 
gathered  about  the  ruined  sanctuary,  huddled  together  in  fear 


REPLY  TO  MR.  FROUDSPS  ''LAST  WORDS:'  221 

and  terror ;  for  the  soldiers,  or  "  tlie  army,"  as  they  used  to 
call  them,  had  come  down  upon  them.  They  asked  him : 
"  In  the  name  of  God  !  what  are  we  to  do  ?  It  is  impossible 
to  live  in  this  country.  It  would  be  better  to  be  dead  !  " 
And  he  answered,  like  a  true  man ;  "It  would  not  be  bet- 
ter to  be  dead  ;  but  it  would  be  better  to  take  up  the  pikes 
and,  in  the  name  of  God,  strike  a  blow  for  Ireland  !"  My 
friends,  I  am  not  a  warrior,  I  am  not  a  man  of  war,  nor  of 
blood,  nor  a  man  of  revolution.  I  am  the  quietest  and  most 
peaceable  of  men;  but,  I  declare  to  you,  I  do  not  know 
what  I  should  have  done,  in  Father  John  Murphy's  position, 
except  what  Father  John  himself  did. 

But,  after  all,  all  these  things  are  questions  of  the  past, 
my  friends ;  and  we  are  more  interested  in  questions  of  the 
present,  and  of  the  future,  than  we  are  in  things  of  the  past. 
The  question,  after  all,  is — is  this  thing  to  be  continued '? — 
is  all  this  injustice,  all  this  coercion,  all  this  aggravation  of 
a  nation,  and  keeping  it  down, — all  these  assertions  that  the 
people  have  no  right,  no  title  to  govern  themselves, — all  this 
justification  of  tyranny  and  spoliation, — is  all  this  to.  con- 
tinue ?  Well,  according  to  Mr.  Froude,  it  is  ;  and  he  is  an 
authority,  because  he  has  said,  in  one  of  his  essays,  "  I  don't 
see  any  way  out  of  the  Irish  difficulty,  except  one  of  two 
things :  first,  let  all  the  Irish  go  to  America,  and  let  us  lose 
sight  of  them  altogether,  and  have  the  island  to  ourselves  ; 
or,  secondly,  let  them  go  on  in  their  old  ways,  and  we  will 
have  to  coerce  them  into  submission."  Either  exile  or  coer- 
cion, my  friends,  according  to  Mr.  Froude.  Well,  I  answer : 
I  may  tell  Mr.  Froude, — and  I  think  with  truth, — I  do  not 
like  bragging  or  boasting;  but,  I  am  not  blind  to  the  signs  of 
the  times ;  and  I  may  tell  Mr.  Froude,  and  I  think  with 
truth,  that  the  Irish  are  not  prepared  to  emigrate  altogether. 
I  am  not  sure  but  it  may  be  a  pleasant  tiling  to  cross  the 
Atlantic: — I  did  not  find  it  pleasant.  It  may  be  a  fine 
thing,  and  a  pleasant  thing,  to  find  a  home,  and  freedom, 
and  everything  that  the  heart  can  desire,  in  America,  ilany 
of  you  have  found  a  home ;  and  if  you  all  have  found  it,  the 
better  pleased  I  will  be.  But,  after  all,  there  is  such  a  coun- 
try as  Ireland  on  the  face  of  the  earth  ;  and  a  sweet  old  coun- 
try I  have  always  found  her  to  be.     There  are  such  a  people 


222  REPLY  TO  MR.  FROUDE'S  ''LAST  WORPS:' 

as  fclie  Irish  j^eople,  who  have  held  that  land  for  ages  acd 
ages,  in  weal  and  in  woe.  That  land  God  gave  to  the  Irish 
people ;  and,  with  the  blessing,  and  under  the  hand  of  that 
God,  that  land  will  belong  to  the  Irish  people  until  the  day 
of  judgment.  Mr.  Fronde's  scheme  of  universal  emigra- 
tion is  a  wild  dream.  I  knew  liim  to  be  a  philosopher ;  I 
suspected  him  to  be  a  historian ;  but  I  did  not  think  or  ima- 
gine that  he  was  a  poet,  until  I  heard  him  talk  of  the  uni- 
versal emigration  of  the  Irish  race.  Well,  then  there  re- 
mains nothing  more  except  to  coerce  us  into  submission ;  by 
which  he  means  that,  if  the  agitation  for  "  Home  Rule  "  con- 
tinues, England  will  meet  it  in  the  old  style,  by  a  Coercion 
Bill.  This  was  the  old  legislation  for  Ireland.  I  remember, 
in  my  own  days,  if  the  people  wanted  anything, — if  the  Cath- 
olics wanted  their  emancipation, — if  the  people  wanted  mu- 
nicipal or  parliamentary  reform, — the  way  that  they  were 
treated  by  the  English  Government  was  to  pass  a  coercion 
bill ; — that  is  to  say,  if  any  meetings  were  held,  all  the  peo- 
ple attending  them  were  to  be  fined,  and  the  place  was  put 
under  martial  law.  The  people  were  to  be  ground  to  the 
very  earth ;  and  no  man  was  to  be  allowed  to  speak  his  opin- 
ion. This  is  Mr.  Fronde's  second  remedy.  1  may  as  well 
tell  him  that  the  time  for  coercion  bills  has  gone  by.  We 
will  have  no  more  of  them ;  and  I  will  tell  you  what  has 
assisted  in  passing  them  away  forever.  You  will  be  sur- 
prised to  hear  it  from  me  ;  I  may  as  well  speak  my  senti- 
ments and  my  convictions ;  and  I  verily  believe  that  the 
National  Schools  of  Ireland,  v/ith  all  their  faults,  have  put 
an  end  to  coercion  bills  forever.  You  may  as  well  try  to 
stop  the  sweeping  of  the  hurricane  by  putting  up  your  feeble 
hands  against  it ;  you  may  as  well  try  to  stop  the  lightnings 
of  heaven  by  holding  up  your  fingers  against  them,  as  try  to 
stop  by  coercion  the  expression  of  the  minds  and  desires  of 
an  educated  people.  It  will  never  be  done.  The  Irish  peo- 
ple to-day  are,  at  an  average,  as  well  educated  as  any  other 
people  in  the  world.  You  rarely  meet  in  Ireland,  to-day,  a 
man  or  woman  who  does  not  know  how  to  read  and  wiite ; 
and  you  will  rarely  meet  a  man  who  does  not  feel  a  mixture 
of  joy  and  pride  and  anger  when  he  reads  or  hears  of  the 
wrongs  and  glories  of  his  old  country.     "  England,"   says 


REPLY  TO  MB.  FEOUDE'8  ''LAST  WORDS:'  223 

Mr.  Fronde,  "  is  greatly  afraid  slie  will  have  to  go  back  to 
measures  of  coercion  again."  I  tell  him,  let  England  make 
her  mind  easy ;  she  never  will  have  to  go  back  to  them  again ; 
for  the  simple  reason  that  she  never  will  be  able. 

What  future  is  before  Ireland?  Oh,  my  friends,  what 
can  I  say  ?  Before  me  lies  the  past  of  my  native  land  :  I 
can  weep  over  her  wrongs.  Before  me  lies  the  Ireland  of 
to-day,  and  I  can  sympathize  with  her  sorrows.  I  believe 
I  can  see  the  dawning  of  her  hopes.  Of  the  future  it  be- 
comes me  not  specifically  to  speak.  I  am  a  man  of  peace, 
not  of  war.  It  only  remains  for  me  to  say  that,  next  to  the 
duty  that  I  owe  to  God  and  His  holy  altar,  is  the  duty  that 
I  owe  to  thee,  oh  !  land  of  Ireland  ;  to  pray  for  thee  ;  to  sigh 
for  thy  coming  glory  ;  and  to  be  ready — whenever  the  neces- 
sary conditions  shall  convince  me  that  the  fit  hour  has  corae 
— to  take  a  man's  part  in  the  vindication  of  thy  name. 


APPENDIX. 


P^RT    I. 

THE  "  BULL  OF  ADEIA:tT  lY." 

THE    GEEAT   NORMAN    FORGERY. 

Wliat  Dr.  Thdner  said  of  it,  and  Frmide  suppressed. 

[The  annexed  review  of  the  controversy  on  the  so-called  ' '  Bull " 
of  Pope  Adrian  lY, ,  purporting  to  cede  Ireland  to  Henry  II. ,  was 
contributed  to  the   "imA   Ecclesiastical  Record''''   for  November, 


There  was  a  time  when  it  would  be  little  less  than  trea- 
son to  question  the  genuineness  of  the  Bull  by  which  Pope 
Adrian  lY.  is  supposed  to  have  made  a  grant  of  Ireland  to 
Henry  the  Second  ;  and,  indeed,  from  the  first  half  of  the 
thirteenth  to  the  close  of  the  fifteenth  century,  it  was  prin- 
cipally through  this  supposed  grant  of  the  Holy  See  that  the 
English  Government  sought  to  justify  their  claim  to  hold 
dominion  in  our  island.  However,  opinions  and  times  have 
changed,  and  at  the  present  day  this  Bull  of  Adrian  has  as 
little  bearino;  on  the  connection  between  England  and  this 
country  as  it  could  possibly  have  on  the  union  of  the  Isle  of 
Man  with  Great  Britain. 


APPENDIX.  225 

On  tlie  otlier  hand,  many  strange  things  have  been  said 
during  the  past  months  in  the  so-called  Nationalist  jonr- 
nals,  whilst  asserting  the  genuineness  of  this  famous  Bull. 
I  need  scarcely  remark  that  it  does  not  seem  to  have  been 
the  love  either  of  our  poor  country  or  of  historic  truth  that 
inspired  their  declamation.  It  proceeded  mainly  from  their 
hatred  to  the  Sovereign  Pontiff,  and  from  the  vain  hope  that 
such  exaggerated  statements  might  in  some  way  weaken  the 
devoted  affection  of  our  people  for  Rome. 

Laying  aside  such  prejudiced  opinions,  the  controversy  as 
to  the  genuineness  of  Adrian's  Bull  should  be  viewed  in  a 
purely  historical  light,  and  its  decision  must  depend  on  the 
value  and  weight  of  the  historical  arguments  which  may  be 
advanced  to  sustain  it.  The  following  is  a  literal  transla- 
tion of  the  old  Latin  text  of  Adrian's  Bull : — 

"  Adrian,  Bishop,  servant  of  the  servants  of  God,  to  our 
most  dear  Son  in  Christ,  the  illustrious  King  of  the  English, 
greeting  and  the  Apostolical  Benediction. 

**  The  thoughts  of  your  Highness  are  laudably  and  profit- 
ably directed  to  the  greater  glory  of  your  name  on  eai'tli  and 
to  the  increase  of  the  reward  of  eternal  happiness  in  heaven, 
when  as  a  Catholic  Prince  you  propose  to  yourself  to  extelid 
the  borders  of  the  Church,  to  announce  the  truths  of  Chris- 
tian Faith  to  ignorant  and  barbarous  nations,  and  to  root 
out  the  weeds  of  wickedness  from  the  field  of  the  Lord  ;  and 
the  more  effectually  to  accomplish  this,  you  implore  the 
counsel  and  favor  of  the  Apostolic  See.  In  which  matter 
we  feel  assured  that  the  higher  your  aims  are,  and  the  more 
discreet  your  pi-oceedings,  the  happier,  with  God's  aid,  will 
be  the  result ;  because  those  undertakings  that  ]:)roceed  fi'om 
the  ardor  of  faith  and  the  love  of  religion  are  sure  always  to 
have  a  prosperous  end  and  issue. 

"  It  is  beyond  all  doubt,  as  your  Highness  also  doth  ac- 
knowledge, that  Ireland,  and  all  the  islands  upon  Avhich 
Christ  the  San  of  Justice  has  shone,  and  which  have  re- 
ceived the  knowledge  of  the  Christian  faith,  are  subject  to 
the  authority  of  St.  Peter   and   of  the  most   Holy  Roman 


226  APPENDIX, 

Church.  Wlierefore  we  are  the  more  desirous  to  sow  In 
them  an  acceptable  seed  and  a  pUmtation  pleasing  unto  G(»d, 
because  we  know  that  a  most  rigorous  account  of  them  shall 
be  required  of  us  hereafter. 

"  Now,  most  dear  Son  in  Christ,  you  have  signified  to  us 
that  you  propose  to  enter  the  island  of  Ireland  to  establish 
the  observance  of  law  amongst  its  people,  and  to  eradicate 
the  weeds  of  vice ;  and  that  you  are  willing  to  pay  from 
evfery  house  one  penny  as  an  annual  tribute  to  St.  Peter,  and 
to  preserve  the  rights  of  the  Church  of  that  land  whole  and 
inviolate.  We,  therefore,  receiving  with  due  favor  your 
pious  and  laudable  desires,  and  gi^aciously  granting  our  con- 
sent to  your  petition,  declare  that  it  is  pleasing  and  accept- 
able to  us,  that  for  the  purpose  of  enlarging  the  limits  of  the 
Church,  setting  bounds  to  the  torrent  of  vice,  reforming 
evil  manners,  planting  the  seeds  of  virtue,  and  increasing 
Christian  faith,  you  should  enter  that  island  and  carry  into 
efl'ect  those  things  which  belong  to  the  service  of  God  and  to 
the  salvation  of  that  people ;  and  that  the  people  of  that 
land  should  honorably  receive  and  reverence  you  as  Lord ; 
the  lights  of  the  churches  being  pi-eserved  untouched  and 
entire,  and  reserving  the  annual  tribute  of  one  penny  from 
every  house  to  St.  Peter  and  the  most  Holy  Roman  Church. 

"  If,  therefore,  you  resolve  to  carry  these  designs  into  ex- 
ecution, let  it  be  your  study  to  form  that  people  to  good 
morals,  and  take  such  order  both  by  yourself  and  by  those 
{\iiom  you  shall  find  qualified  in  faith,  in  words,  and  in  con- 
duct, that  the  Church  there  may  be  adorned,  and  the  prac- 
tices of  Christian  faith  be  planted  and  increased ;  and  let  all 
that  tends  to  the  glory  of  God  and  the  salvation  of  souls  be 
so  ordered  by  you  that  you  may  deserve  to  obtain  from  God 
an  increase  of  everlasting  reward,  and  may  secure  on  earth 
a  glorious  name  throughout  all  time.     Given  at  Rome,"  etc. 

Before  we  proceed  with  the  inquiry  as  to  the  genuineness 
of  this  letter  of  Pope  Adrian,  I  must  detain  the  reader  with 
a  few  brief  preliminary  remarks. 

First :  Some  passages  of  this  important  document  have 
been  very  unfairly  dealt  with  by  modern  writers  while  pur- 
porting to  discuss  its  merits.     Thus,  for  instance,  Professor 


APPENDIX.  227 

Richey,  in  his  "  Lectures  on  Irish  History,"  presenting  a  trans 
lation  of  the  Latin  text  to  the  lady  pupils  of  the  Alexandra 
College,  makes  the  Pontiff  to  write : 

"  You  have  signified  to  us,  our  well-beloved  son  in  Christ, 
that  you  propose  to  enter  the  island  of  Ireland  in  order  to 
subdue  the  peojyle,  etc.  .  .  .  We,  therefore,  regarding 
your  pious  and  laudable  design  with  due  favor,  etc.,  do  here- 
by declare  our  will  and  pleasure,  that  for  the  purpose  of  en- 
larging the  borders  of  the  Church,  etc.,  you  do  enter  and 
take  possession  of  that  island.'''' 

Such  an  erroneous  translation  must  be  the  more  blamed 
in  the  present  instance,  as  it  was  scarcely  to  be  expected 
that  the  ladies  whom  the  learned  lecturer  addressed  would 
have  leisure  to  consult  the  original  Latin  text  of  the  docu- 
ment which  he  professed  to  translate.  This,  however,  is  not 
the  only  error  into  which  Professor  Pichey  has  been  be- 
trayed regarding  the  Bull  of  Adrian  TV.  Having  mentioned 
in  a  note  the  statement  of  Poger  de  Wendover,  that  the 
Bull  was  obtained  from  Pope  Adrian  in  the  year  1155,  he 
adds  his  own  opinion  that  "  the  grant  appears  to  have  been 
made  in  1172."  However,  at  that  date.  Pope  Adrian  had 
been  for  about  thirteen  years  freed  from  the  cares  of  his 
Pontificate,  having  passed  to  a  better  world  in  the  year 
1159. 

Second:  Any  one  who  attentively  weighs  the  words  of 
the  above  document  will  see  at  once  that  it  prescinds  from 
all  title  of  conquest,  whilst  at  the  same  time  it  makes  no 
gift  or  transfer  of  dominion  to  Henry  the  Second.  As  far 
as  this  letter  of  Adrian  is  concerned,  the  visit  of  Henry  to 
our  island  might  be  the  enterprise  of  a  friendly  monarch, 
who,  at  the  invitation  of  a  distracted  state,  would  seek  by 
his  presence  to  restore  peace  and  to  uphold  the  observance 
of  the  laws.  Thus,  those  foolish  theories  must  at  once  be 
net  aside,  which  rest  on  the  grr  undless  supposition  that  Pope 


228'  APPENDIX. 

Adrian  autliorized  the  invasion  and  plunder  of  our  people  by 
the  Anglo-Norman  adventurers. 

Third  :  There  is  another  serious  error  which  must  also 
be  set  at  rest  by  the  simple  perusal  of  the  above  document. 
I  mean  that  opinion  which  would  fain  set  forth  the  letter  of 
Pope  Adrian  as  a  dogmatical  definition  of  the  Holy  See,  as 
if  the  Sovereign  Pontiff  then  spoke  ex  cathedra,  i.e.,  solemnly 
propounded  some  doctrine  to  be  believed  by  the  Universal 
Church.  Now  it  is  manifest  from  the  letter  itself  that  it 
has  none  of  the  conditions  required  for  a  definition  ex 
cathedra  :  it  is  not  addressed  to  the  Universal  Church  ;  it 
proposes  no  matter  of  faith  to  be  held  by  all  the  children  of 
Christ ;  in  fact,  it  presents  no  doctrine  whatever  to  be  be- 
lieved by  the  faithful,  and  it  is  nothing  more  than  a  com- 
mendatory letter  addressed  to  Henry,  resting  on  the  good 
intentions  set  forth  by  that  monarch  himself.  There  is  one 
maxim,  indeed,  which  awakens  the  suspicions  of  the  old  Galli- 
can  school,  viz.,  that  "all  the  islands  are  subject  to  the  au- 
thority of  St.  Peter."  However,  it  is  no  doctrinal  teaching 
that  is  thus  propounded ;  it  is  a  matter  of  fact  admitted  by 
Henry  himself,  a  principle  recognized  by  the  international 
law  of  Europe  in  the  middle  ages,  a  maxim  set  down  by  the 
various  states  themselves,  the  better  to  maintain  peace  and 
concord  among  the  princes  of  Christendom.  To  admit,  how- 
ever, or  to  call  in  question  the  teaching  of  the  civil  law  of 
Europe,  as  embodied  in  that  maxim,  has  nothing  whatever 
to  say  to  the  great  prerogative  of  St.  Peter's  successors, 
whilst  they  solemnly  propound  to  the  faithful,  in  unerring 
accents,  the  doctrines  of  Divine  faith. 

Fourth  :  To  many  it  will  seem  a  paradox,  and  yet  it  is  a 
fact,  that  the  supposed  Bull  of  Pope  Adrian  had  no  part 
whatever  in  the  submission  of  the  Irish  Chieftains  to  Henry 
the  Second.  Even  according  to  those  who  maintain  its  gen- 
uineness, this  Bull  was  not  published  till  the  year  1175,  and 


APPENDIX.  229 

certainly  no  mention  of  it  was  made  in  Ireland  till  long 
after  the  submission  of  the\  Irish  Princes.  The  success  of 
the  Anglo-Normans  was  mainly  due  to  a  far  different  cause, 
viz.,  to  the  superior  military  skill  and  equipment  of  the  in- 
vaders. Among  the  Anglo-Norman  leaders  were  some  of 
the  bravest  knights  of  the  kingdom,  who  had  won  their  lau- 
rels in  the  wars  of  France  and  Wales.  Their  weapons  and 
armor  rendered  it  almost  imj^ossible  for  the  Irish  troops  to 
meet  them  in  the  open  field.  The  cross-bow,  w^hich  was 
made  use  of  for  the  first  time  in  this  invasion,  produced  as 
great  a  change  in  military  tactics  as  the  rifled  cannon  in  our 
own  days.  When  Henry  came  in  person  to  Ireland  his  nu- 
merous army  hushed  all  opposition.  There  were  400  vessels 
in  his  fleet,  and  if  a  minimum  of  twenty-five  armed  men  be 
allowed  for  each  vessel,  we  will  have  an  army  of  at  least 
10,000  men  fully  equijiped,  landing  unopposed,  on  the  south- 
ern shores  of  our  island.  It  is  to  this  imposing  force,  and 
the  armor  of  the  Anglo-Norman  knights,  that  we  must  in 
great  part  refer  whatever  success  attended  this  invasion  of 
the  English  monarch. 

To  proceed  now  with  the  immediate  matter  of  our  present 
historical  inquiry,  the  following  is  the  summary  of  the  argu- 
ments in  favor  of  the  authenticity  of  Pope  Adrian's  letter, 
inserted  in  the  Irishman  newspaper  of  June  the  8th  last,  by 
J.  C.  O'Callaghan,  Esq.,  editor  of  the  '*  Macarise  Excidium," 
and  author  of  many  valuable  works  on  Irish  history : 

"  We  have,  firstly,  the  testimony  of  John  of  Salisbury, 
secretary  to  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  and  one  of  the 
ablest  writers  of  his  day,  who  relates  his  having  been  the 
envoy  from  Henry  to  Adrian,  in  1155,  to  ask  for  a  grant  of 
Ireland,  and  such  a  grant  having  then  been  obtained,  accom- 
panied by  a  gold  ring,  containing  a  fine  emerald,  as  a  token 
of  investiture,  with  which  grant  and  ring  the  said  John  re- 
turned to  Henry.  We  have,  secondly,  the  grant  or  Bull  of 
Adrian,  in  extenso,  in  the  works  of  Giraldus  Cambrensis  and 


•230  APPENDIX. 

his  contemporary,  Kadulfus  de  Diceto,  Dean  of  London,  as 
well  as  in  those  of  Roger  de  Wendover  and  Matthew  Paris. 
We  have,  thirdly,  several  Bulls  of  Adrian's  successor.  Pope 
Alexander  III.,  still  further  to  the  purport  of  Adrian's,  or 
in  Henry's  favor.  We  have,  fourthly,  the  recorded  public 
reading  of  the  Bulls  of  Adrian  and  Alexander,  at  a  meeting 
of  Bishops  in  Waterford,  in  1175.  We  have,  fifthly,  after 
the  liberation  of  Scotland  from  England,  at  Bannockburn, 
and  the  consecpient  invitation  of  Bruce's  brother,  Edward, 
to  be  King  of  Ireland,  the  Bull  of  Adrian  prefixed  to  the 
eloquent  letter  of  remonstrance,  which  the  Irish  presented  to 
Pope  John  XXII.,  against  the  English  ;  the  same  Bull, 
moreover,  referred  to  in  the  remonstrance  kself,  as  so  ruin- 
ous to  Treland  ;  and  a  copy  of  that  Bull,  accordingly,  sent 
back  by  the  Pope  to  Edward  II.  of  England,  for  his  use  un- 
der those  circumstances.  We  have,  sixthly,  from  Cardinal 
Baronius,  in  his  great  work,  the  '  Annales  Ecclesiastici,'  un- 
der Adrian  IV.,  his  grant  of  Ireland  to  his  countryman,  in 
full,  or,  as  is  said,  '  ex  codice  Vaticano  diploma  datum  ad 
Henricum,  Anglorum  Begem.'  We  have,  seventhly,  the 
Bull  in  the  Bullarium  Bomanum,  as  printed  at  Pome  in  1739. 
The  citations  and  references  in  su])port  of  all  the  foregoing 
statements  will  be  found  in  the  *  Notes  and  Illustrations '  of 
my  edition  of  *  Macariae  Excidium  '  for  the  Irish  Archaeolog- 
ical Society  in  1850,  given  in  such  a  manner  as  must  satisfy 
the  most  sceptical." 

Examining  these  arguments  in  detail,  I  will  follow  the 
order  thus  marked  out  by  Mr.  O'Callaghan. 

1. — We  meet,  in  the  first  place,  the  testimony  of  John  of 
Salisbury,  who,  in  his  ^'  Metcdogicus^^  (lib.  iv.,  cap.  42), 
writes,  that  being  in  an  official  capacity  at  the  Papal  court, 
in  1155,  Pope  Adrian  IV.  then  granted  the  investiture  of 
Ireland  to  the  illustrious  King  Henry  II.  of  England. 

I  do  not  wish  in  any  way  to  detract  from  the  praise  due 
to  John  of  Salisbury,  who  was  at  this  time  one  of  the  ablest 
courtiers  of  Henry  II.  However,  the  words  here  imputed 
to  him  must  be  taken  with  great  reserve.  Inserted  as  they 
are  in  the  last  chapter  of  his  work,  they  are  not  at  all  re- 


APPENDIX.  231 

quired  by  the  context :  by  cancelling  tliem  the  wliole  pas* 
sage  runs  smoother,  and  is  more  connected  in  every  way. 
This  is  the  more  striking,  as  in  another  work  of  the  same 
writer,  which  is  entitled  "  Polycraticus^''  we  meet  with  a  de- 
tailed account  of  the  various  incidents  of  his  embassy  to 
Pope  Adrian,  yet  he  there  makes  no  mention  of  the  Bull  in 
Henry's  favor,  or  of  the  gold  ring  and  its  fine  emerald,  or 
of  the  grant  of  Ireland,  all  of  which  would  have  been  so  im- 
portant for  his  narrative. 

We  must  also  hold  in  mind  the  time  when  the  "  3Ieta* 
logicus''''  was  written.  The  author  himself  fixes  its  date; 
for,  immediately  before  asking  the  prayers  of  "  those  who 
read  his  book,  and  those  who  hear  it  read,"  he  tells  us  that 
the  news  of  Pope  Adrian's  death  had  reached  him  a  little 
time  before,  and  he  adds  that  his  own  patron,  Theobald, 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  though  still  living,  was  weighed 
down  by  many  infirmities.  Now,  Pope  Adrian  departed 
this  life  in  1159,  and  the  death  of  Archbishop  Theobald  hap- 
pened in  1161.  Hence,  Gale  and  the  other  editors  of  John 
of  Salisbury's  works,  without  a  dissentient  voice,  refer  the 
^^  Metalogicus  ^^  to  the  year  1159. 

Now,  it  is  a  matter  beyond  the  reach  of  controversy,  that 
if  Henry  the  Second  obtained  the  investiture  of  Ireland 
from  Adrian  IV.,  he  kept  this  grant  a  strict  secret  till  at 
least  the  year  1175.  For  twenty  years,  i.e.,  from  1155  to 
1 175,  no  mention  was  made  of  the  gift  of  Adrian.  Henry  did 
not  refer  to  it  when  authorizing  his  vassals  to  join  Diarmaid, 
in  1167,  when  Adrian's  Bull  would  have  been  so  opportune  to 
justify  his  intervention  ;  he  did  not  mention  it  when  he  him- 
self set  out  for  Ireland  to  solicit  and  receive  the  homage  of 
the  Irish  Princes ;  he  did  not  even  refer  to  it  when  he  as- 
sumed his  new  title  and  accomplished  the  purpose  of  liis 
expedition.  The  Council  of  Cashel,  in  1172,  was  the  first 
episcopal   assembly  after   Henry's  arrival  in   Ireland;  the 


232  APPENDIX. 

Papal  Legate  was  present  there,  and  did  Adrian's  Bull  exist, 
it  should  necessarily  have  engaged  the  attention  of  the  as- 
sembled Fathers.  Nevertheless,  not  a  whisper  as  to  Adrian'a 
grant  was  to  be  heard  at  that  famous  Council.  Even  the 
learned  editor  of  "  Cambrensis  Eversus^''  whilst  warmly  as- 
serting the  genuineness  of  Adrian's  Bull,  admits  "  there  is 
not  any,  even  the  slightest,  authority,  for  asserting  that  its 
existence  was  known  in  Ireland  before  the  year  1172,  or  for 
three  years  later  " — (vol.  ii.,  p.  440,  note  z.)  It  is  extremely 
difficult,  in  any  hypothesis,  to  explain  in  a  satisfactory  way 
this  mysterious  silence  of  Henry  tlie  Second,  nor  is  it  easy  to 
'understand  how  a  fact  so  important,  so  vital  to  the  interests 
of  Ireland,  could  remain  so  many  years  concealed  from  those 
who  ruled  the  destinies  of  the  Irish  Church.  For,  we  must 
hold  in  mind,  that  throughout  that  interval  Ireland  num- 
bered among  its  Bishops  one  who  held  the  important  office 
of  Legate  of  the  Holy  See ;  our  Church  had  constant  inter- 
course with  England  and  the  Continent,  and,  through  St. 
Laurence  O'Toole  and  a  hundred  other  distinguished  prelates, 
enjoyed  in  the  fullest  manner  the  confidence  of  Borne. 

If  Adrian  granted  this  Bull  to  Henry  at  the  solicitation  of 
John  of  Salisbury,  in  1155,  there  is  but  one  explanation  for 
the  silence  of  this  courtier  in  his  diary,  as  set  forth  in  the 
"  Polycraticus^''  and  for  the  concealment  of  the  Bull  itself 
from  the  Irish  bishops  and  people,  viz.,  that  this  secresy 
was  required  by  the  state  policy  of  the  English  monarch. 
And,  if  it  be  so,  how  then  can  we  be  asked  to  admit  as  genu- 
ine this  passage  of  the  "  Metalogicus^^  in  which  the  astute 
agent  of  Henry,  still  continuing  to  discharge  offices  of  the 
highest  trust  in  the  court,  would  proclaim  to  the  world  as 
early  as  the  year  1159,  that  Pope  Adrian  had  made  this  for- 
mal grant  of  Ireland  to  his  royal  master,  and  that  the  sol- 
emn record  of  the  investiture  of  this  high  dignity  was  pre 
served  in  the  public  archives  of  the  kingdom  ? 


APPENDIX.  233 

it  must  also  be  added,  that  there  are  some  jArases  in  this 
passage  of  the  "  Metalogicus  "  which  manifestly  betray  the 
hand  of  the  impostor.  Thus,  the  words,  "  usque  in  hodier- 
num  die^i,^''  imply  that  a  long  interval  had  elapsed  since  the 
concession  was  made  by  Pope  Adrian,  and  surely  they  could 
not  have  been  penned  by  John  of  Salisbury,  in  1159.  Much 
less  can  we  suppose  that  this  writer  employed  the  words 
^^  jure  hcereditario  lyossidendam.''''  No  such  hereditary  right 
is  granted  in  the  Bull  of  Adrian.  It  was  not  dreamt  of  even 
during  the  first  years  of  the  Anglo-Norman  invasion,  and  it 
was  only  at  a  later  period,  when  the  Irish  Chieftains  scorn- 
fully rejected  the  Anglo-Norman  law  of  hereditary  succes- 
sion, that  this  expedient  was  thought  of  for  allaying  the  fierce 
opposition  of  our  people. 

Thus  we  are  forced  to  regard  the  supposed  testimony  of 
John  of  Salisbury  as  nothing  more  than  a  clumsy  interpola- 
tion, which  probably  was  not  inserted  in  his  work  till  many 
years  after  the  first  Anglo-Norman  invasion  of  our  island. 

2. — I  now  come  to  the  second  and  main  argument  of  those 
who  seek  to  defend  the  authenticity  of  Pope  Adrian's  Bull. 
We  have  Gircddus  Camhrensis,  they  say,  a  contemporary 
witness,  whose  testimony  is  unquestionable.  He  inserts  in 
full  this  letter  of  Adrian  IV.,  and  he  nowhere  betrays  the 
slightest  doubt  in  regard  to  its  genuineness. 

Some  years  ago,  we  might  perhaps  have  accepted  that  flat- 
tering character  of  Giraldus  Cambrensis,  but  at  the  present 
day,  and  since  the  publication  of  an  accurate  edition  of  liis 
historical  works,  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  do  so. 

It  was  not  till  many  years  after  the  death  of  Pope  Adrian 
that  Gerald  de  Barry,  better  known  by  the  name  of  Giral- 
dus Cambrensis,  entered  on  the  stage  of  Irish  history. 
Twice  he  visited  Ireland  after  the  year  1183,  and  on  both 
occasions  he  discharged  those  duties  which,  at  the  present 


•234  APPENDIX. 

day,  would  merit  for  him  tlie  title  of  special  court  correspond- 
ent with  the  invading  army.  The  Expugnatio  J^ibernica, 
in  which  he  inserts  Adiian's  Bull,  may  justly  be  said  to  have 
been  written  to  order.  Hence,  as  a  matter  of  course,  Giral- 
dus  adopted  in  it  as  genuine  every  document  set  forth  as  such 
by  his  royal  master,  and  any  statements  that  strengthened 
the  claim  or  promoted  the  interests  of  his  brother  Welsh 
adventurers  were  sure  not  to  be  too  nicely  weighed  in  the 
scales  of  criticism  by  such  a  historian.  The  editors  of  the 
works  of  Giraldus,  just  now  published  under  the  direction 
of  the  Master  of  the  Rolls,  have  fully  recognized  this  special 
feature  of  the  historical  writings  of  Giraldus.  The  official 
catalogue  describing  the  "  Expugnatio  Hihernica^''  of  which 
we  treat,  expressly  says : 

"  It  may  be  regarded  rather  as  a  great  ejDic,  than  a  sober 
relation  of  facts  occurring  in  his  own  days.  No  one  can 
peruse  it  without  coming  to  the  conclusion  that  it  is  rather 
a  poetical  fiction  than  a  prosaic,  truthful  history." 

In  the  preface  to  the  fifth  volume  of  the  ''  Historical  Trea- 
tises of  Giraldus,"  the  learned  editor.  Rev.  James  F.  Dimock, 
enters  at  considerable  length  into  the  inquiry,  whether  the 
Expugnatio  Hihernica  was  to  be  accepted  as  genuine  and 
authentic  history.  I  need  do  no  more  than  state  the  con- 
clusions which  he  enunciates  : — 

"  I  think  I  have  said  enough  to  justify  me  in  refusing  to 
accept  Giraldus's  history  of  the  Irish  and  of  their  English 
invaders  as  sober,  truthful  history." 

And  again  he  writes  :  "  My  good  friend  and  pre-laborer 
in  editing  these  volumes  of  Giraldus's  work  "  (Mr.  Brewer) 
"  says  of  the  '  Expjugnatio^  that  Giraldus  would  seem  to 
have  regarded  his  subject  rather  as  a  great  epic,  which  un- 
doubtedly it  was,  than  a  sober  relation  of  facts  occurring  in 
his  own  days.  .  .  .  This  is  a  most  true  and  characteris- 
tic description  of  Giraldus's  treatment  of  his  subject:  the 
treatise  certainly  is,  in  great  measure,  rather  a  poetical  fio 
tion  than  a  prosaic,  truthful  history." 


APPENDIX.  235 

I  must  further  remark  as  another  result  from  Rev.  Mr. 
Dimock's  researches,  that  the  old  text  of  Giraldus  in  refer* 
ence  to  Pope  Adrian's  Bull,  from  which  Mr.  O'Callaghan's 
citations  are  now  made,  is  now  proved  to  be  singularly  de- 
fective. I  Avill  give  the  pithy  words  of  that  learned  editor, 
which  are  stronger  than  any  I  would  wish  to  use  : — 

"iV^o  more  absurd  or  nonsensical  muddle  was  ever  blun- 
dered into  by  the  most  stupid  of  abbreviators^ 

It  is  of  course  from  the  ancient  MSS.  of  the  work  that 
this  corruption  of  the  old  text  is  mainly  proved;  but  it 
should  indeed  be  apparent  from  an  attentive  study  of  the 
very  printed  text  itself;  for,  as  Mr.  Dimock  remarks,  being 
accurately  translated,  its  words  "  marvellously  contrive  to 
make  Henry,  in  1172,  apply  for  and  procure  this  privilege 
from  Pope  Adrian,  who  died  in  1159  !  And  with  equally 
marvellous  confusion  they  represent  John  of  Salisbury,  who 
had  been  Henry's  agent  in  procuring  this  privilege  in 
1155,  as  sent,  not  to  Ireland,  but  to  Rome,  for  the  purpose 
of  publishing  the  Bull  at  Waterford,  in  1174  or  1175  !  " 

I  will  only  add,  regarding  the  testimony  of  Giraldus  Cam- 
brensis,  that  in  the  genuine  text  of  the  "  Expugnatio  Siber- 
7iica "  he  places  on  the  same  level  the  Bull  of  Adrian  IV. 
and  that  of  Alexander  III.  Nevertheless,  as  we  will  just 
now  see,  he  elsewhere  admits  that  there  were  many  and  grave 
suspicions  that  the  supposed  Bull  of  Alexander  had  never 
been  granted  by  the  Holy  See. 

The  other  names  mentioned  together  with  Giraldus  will 
not  detain  us  long.  They  are  all  writers  who  only  incident- 
ally make  reference  to  Irish  matters,  and  in  these  they 
naturally  enough  take  Giraldus  for  their  guide. 

Ralph  de  Diceto  wrote  about  1210,  and  like  Giraldus  re- 
ceived his  honors  at  the  hands  of  Henry  the  Second.  Irish 
historians  have  not  yet  accepted  him  as  a  guide  in  reference 


236  APPENDIX. 

to  matters  connected  with  our  country.  For  instance,  the 
Synod  of  Casliel,  of  1172,  which  was  one  of  the  most  impor- 
tant events  of  that  period  of  our  history,  is  described  by  him 
as  held  in  Lismore. 

Koger  de  Wendover  was  a  monk  of  St.  Albans,  who  died 
6th  of  May,  1237.  His  "  FLores  Historiaruvi "  begins  with 
the  creation  of  the  world,  and  ends  two  years  before  his 
death  in  1235.  He  merely  comjDendiates  other  sources 
down  to  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century.  It  is  only 
the  subsequent  portion  of  his  work  which  is  held  in  esteem 
by  our  annalists. 

Matthew  Paris  was  a  brother  religious  of  Roger  de  Wen- 
dover, in  St.  Albans,  where  he  died  in  1259.  Mr.  Coxe, 
who  edited  a  portion  of  the  "  Flores  Ilistoriarum  "  for  the 
English  Historical  Society  (1841-1844),  has  proved  that, 
down  to  the  year  1235,  Matthew  Paris  only  compendiates 
the  work  of  Wendover.  At  all  events  his  "  Ilistoria  Major'''' 
is  of  very  little  weight.  A  distinguished  German  historian 
of  the  present  day,  Schrodl,  thus  conveys  his  strictures  on 
its  merits  : — 

"  Se  trompe  a  chaque  instant,  et,  entraine  par  son  aveugle 
rage  de  critique,  donne  pour  des  faits  historiques  des  anec- 
dotes piquantes  qui  n'ont  aucune  authenticite,  des  legendes 
deraisonnables  et  toutes  sortes  des  details  suspects,  exageres 
et  calomnieux." 

To  the  testimony  of  such  writers  we  may  well  op2:>ose  the 
silence  of  Peter  de  Blois,  secretary  of  Henry  tlie  Second, 
though  chronicling  the  chief  events  of  Henry's  reign,  and 
the  silence  of  all  our  native  annalists,  not  one  of  whom  ever 
mentions  the  Bull  of  Adrian. 

3. — But  it  is  time  to  pass  on  to  the  third  argument  which 
is  advanced  by  our  opponents.  It  is  quite  true  that  wo 
have  some  letters  or  Bulls  of  Pope  Alexander  III.  connected 
with  the  Irish  invasion.     Three  of  these,  written  in  1172, 


APPENDIX.  :237 

are  certainly  authentic.  They  are  preserved  in  the  "  Liber 
Niger  Scaccarii^'*  from  which  they  were  edited  by  Hearne, 
and  in  later  times  they  have  been  accurately  printed  by  Mr. 
O'Callaghan  and  Rev.  Dr.  Kelly.  They  are  addressed  re- 
spectively to  the  Irish  bishops,  King  Henry,  and  the  Irish 
Princes.  So  far,  however,  are  these  letters  from  corroborat- 
ing the  genuineness  of  Pope  Adrian's  Bull,  tliat  they  fur- 
nish an  unanswerable  argument  for  wholly  setting  it  aside  as 
groundless  and  imauthentic.  They  are  entirely  devoted  to 
the  circumstances  of  the  invasion  of  our  island  and  its 
results,  and  yet  the  only  title  that  they  recognize  in  Henry 
is  "that  monarch's  power,  and  the  submission  of  the  Irish 
Chieftains."  They  simply  ignore  any  Bull  of  Adrian,  and 
any  investiture  from  the  Holy  See. 

There  is  however  another  Bull  of  Alexander  III.,  pre- 
served by  Giraldus  Cambrensis,  which  is  supposed  to  have 
been  granted  at  the  request  of  King  Henry,  in  1172,  and  is 
confirmatory  of  the  gift  and  in  vesture  made  by  Pope  Adrian : 
and  Mr.  O'Callaghan  holds  that  this  Bull  of  Alexander 
III.  sets  at  rest  forever  all  doubt  as  to  the  genuineness  of 
the  grant  made  by  Adrian  lY". 

The  question  at  once  suggests  itself: — Is  this  Bull  of 
Alexander  III.  to  be  itself  admitted  as  genuine  and  authen- 
tic ?  If  its  own  authority  be  doubtful,  surely  it  cannot 
sufiice  to  prop  up  the  tottering  cause  of  Adrian's  Bull.  Now 
its  style  is  entirely  different  from  that  of  the  three  authentic 
letters  of  which  we  have  just  spoken.  Quite  in  opposition 
to  these  letters,  "  the  only  authority  alleged  in  it  for 
Henry's  right  to  Ireland  is  the  Bull  of  Adrian,"  as  Dr. 
Lanigan  allows.  The  genuine  letters  are  dated  from  Tus- 
culum,  where,  as  we  know  from  other  sources,  Alexander 
actually  resided  in  1172.  On  the  other  hand,  this  confirma- 
tory Bull,  though  supposed  to  have  been  obtained  in  1172,  is 
dated  from  Rome^  thus  clearly  betraying  the   hand  of  the 


238  APPENDIX. 

impostor.  Such  was  the  disturbed  condition  of  Rome  at 
that  period  that  it  was  impossible  for  His  Holiness  to  reside 
there,  and  hence  we  find  him  sometimes  holding  his  Court  in 
Tusculum,  at  other  times  in  Segni,  Anagni,  or  Eerrara.  It 
was  only  when  these  disturbances  were  quelled  that  Alexan- 
der III.  was  able,  in  1178,  to  return  in  triumph  to  his  capital. 
But  there  is  still  another  reason  why  we  must  doubt  of 
the  authority  of  this  confirmatory  Bull.  The  researches  of 
Eer.  Mr.  Dimock  have  proved  that  Ussher  long  ago  re- 
marked, that  this  Bull  of  Alexander  originally  formed  part 
of  the  work  of  Giraldus  Cambrensis,  altliough  later  copyists, 
and  the  first  editors,  including  the  learned  Camden,  recog- 
nizing its  spuriousness,  excluded  it  from  Giraldus's  text. 
The  matter  is  now  set  at  rest,  for  the  ancient  MSS.  clearly 
prove  that  it  originally  formed  part  of  the  "  Expugnatio 
Hibernica.''''  Thanks,  however,  to  the  zeal  and  industry  of 
Mr.  Brewer,  we  are  at  present  acquainted  with  another 
work  of  Giraldus,  written  at  a  later  period  than  his  His- 
torical Tracts  on  Ireland.  It  is  entitled  "  De  I^rincipiis 
Instructionis,'''*  and  was  edited  in  1846,  for  the  "  A.nglia 
Christiana  "  Society.  Now,  in  this  treatise  Giraldus  refers 
to  the  Bull  of  Alexander  III.,  of  which  we  treat,  but  he  pre- 
fixes the  following  remarkable  words  : — 

^'Some  assert  or  imagine  that  this  IBull  was  obtained  from 
the  Pope  :  hut  others  deny  that  it  was' ever  obtained  from  the 
Pontiff y  "  Sicut  a  quibusdam  impetratum  assertitur  aut 
confingitur ;  ab  aliis  autem  usquam  impetratum  fuisse  nega- 
tur." 

Surely  these  words  should  suffice  to  convince  the  most 
sceptical  that  the  fact  of  the  Bull  of  Alexander  being  re- 
cited by  Giraldus,  in  his  "  Expugnatio  Ilibernica^''  is  a 
very  unsatisfactory  ground  on  which  to  rest  the  arguments 
for  its  genuineness. 

4. — As  regards  the  Synod  of  Waterford,  in  1175,  and  the 


APPENDIX.  209 

statement  that  the  Bulls  of  Adrian  and  Alexander  were 
published  therein  for  the  first  time,  all  these  matters  rest  on 
the  very  doubtful  authority  of  Giraldus  Cambrensis.  We 
have  no  record  in  the  Irish  Annals  that  any  general  meet- 
ing of  the  Irish  Bishops  was  held  in  Waterford  in  1175. 
The  circumstances  of  the  country  rendered  such  a  Synod  im- 
possible ;  for  war  and  dissensions  raged  throughout  the 
length  and  breadth  of  our  island.  It  was  in  that  year,  how- 
ever, that  the  first  Bishop  was  appointed  by  King  Henry, 
to  the  See  of  Waterford,  as  Ware  informs  us  ;  and,  perhaps, 
we  would  not  err  were  we  to  suppose  that  the  Synod  so 
pompously  set  forth  by  Giraldus,  was  a  convention  of  the 
Anglo-Norman  clergy  of  Waterford,  under  tlieir  newly 
appointed  Prelate,  all  of  whom  would,  no  doubt,  joyfully 
accept  the  official  documents  presented  in  the  name  of  the 
King,  by  Nicholas  of  Wallingford. 

Leland  supposes  that  this  Synod  of  Waterford  was  not 
held  till  1177.  The  disturbed  state  of  the  kingdom,  how- 
ever, rendered  a  Synod  equally  impossible  in  that  year,  and 
all  our  ancient  authorities  utterly  ignore  such  a  Synod. 

5. — In  the  "  Remonstrance "  addressed  by  the  Irish 
Princes  and  people  to  John  XXII.,  about  the  year  1315, 
r'^'peated  mention  is  made  of  the  Bull  of  Adrian.  But  then 
it  is  only  cited  there  as  a  conclusive  argument  ad  hominem^ 
against  the  English  traducers  of  our  nation,  "  lest  the  bitter 
and  venomous  calumnies  of  the  English,  and  their  unjust, 
and  unfounded  attacks  upon  us  and  all  who  support  our 
rights,  may  in  any  degree  influence  the  mind  of  your  Holi- 
ness." The  Bull  of  Adrian  lY.  was  published  by  the  Eng- 
lish, and  set  forth  by  them  as  the  charter-deed  of  their 
rule  in  Ireland ;  yet  they  violated  in  a  most  flagrant  manner 
all  the  conditions  of  that  Papal  grant.  The  Irish  Princes 
and  people,  in  self-defence,  had  now  made  over  the  sovereignty 


240  APPENDIX. 

of  the  island  to  Edward  de  Bruce,  brother  of  the  Scottish 
King ;  they  style  him  theii'  adopted  monarch,  and  they  pray 
the  Pope  to  give  a  formal  sanction  to  their  proceedings. 
Thus,  throughout  the  whole  Hemonstrance,  the  Bull  of 
Adrian  is  used  as  a  telling  argument  against  the  injustice  of 
the  invaders,  and  as  a  precedent  which  John  XXII.  might 
justly  follow  in  sanctioning  the  transfer  of  the  Irish  crown 
to  Edward  Bruce.  But  in  all  this  the  historian  will  find  no 
grounds  for  asserting  the  genuineness  of  the  supposed  Bulls 
of  Adrian  or  Alexander.  We  will  just  now  see  that  at  this 
very  time  the  Irish  people  universally  regarded  these  Bulls 
as  spurious  inventions  of  their  English  enemies. 

6. — Baronius,  the  eminent  ecclesiastical  historian,  inserts 
in  his  invaluable  Annals  the  Bull  of  Adrian  IV.,  "  from  a 
Vatican  Manuscript."  This  is  the  sixth  argument  advanced 
by  Mr.  O'Callaghan. 

It  is  not  my  intention  to  question  in  any  way  the  services 
rendered  by  Cardinal  Baronius  to  the  cause  of  our  Church 
History  ;  but  at  the  same  time  no  one  will  deny  that  con- 
siderable progress  has  been  made  in  historical  research  dur- 
ing the  past  three  hundred  and  fifty  years,  and  many  docu- 
ments are  now  set  aside  which  were  then  accepted  as  un- 
questioned on  the  supposed  reliable  authority  of  preceding 
chroniclers. 

In  the  present  instance  we  are  not  left  in  doubt  as  to  the 
source  whence  Baronius  derived  his  information  regarding 
Adrian's  supposed  Bull.  During  my  stay  in  Eome  I  took 
occasion  to  inquire  whether  the  MSS.  of  the  eminent  annal 
ist,  which  are  happily  preserved,  indicated  the  special  "  Vat- 
ican Manuscript "  referred  to  in  his  printed  text ;  and  I 
was  informed  by  the  learned  archivist  of  the  Vatican,  Mon- 
signor  Theiner,  who  is  at  present  engaged  in  giving  a  new 
edition,  and  continuing  the  great  work  of  Baronius,  that  the 


APPENDIX.  241 

Codex  'Vatlcanus  referred  to  is  a  MS.  co\)j  of  the  History 
of  Matthew  Paris,  which  is  preserved  in  the  Yatican  Li- 
brary. Thus  it  is  the  testimony  of  Matthew  Paris  alone 
that  here  confronts  us  in  the  pages  of  Baronius,  and  no  new 
argument  can  be  taken  from  the  words  of  the  eminent  an- 
nalist. Relying  on  the  same  high  authority,  I  am  happy  to 
state  that  nowhere  in  the  private  archives,  or  among  the 
private  papers  of  the  Yatican,  or  in  the  "  Hegesta,'''^  which 
Jaffe's  researches  have  made  so  famous,  or  in  the  various 
indices  of  the  Pontifical  Letters,  can  a  single  trace  be  found 
of  the  supposed  Bulls  of  Adrian  lY.  and  Alexander  III. 

7. — The  last  argument  advanced  by  Mr.  O'Callaghan  will 
not  detain  us  long.  The  insertion  or  omission  of  such 
ancient  records  in  the  Bullarium,  is  a  matter  that  depends 
wholly  on  the  critical  skill  of  the  editor.  Curious  enough, 
in  one  edition  of  the  Bullarium,  as  may  be  seen  in  the  ref- 
erences of  Dr.  Lanigan,  Adrian's  Bull  is  inserted,  whilst  no 
mention  is  made  of  that  of  Alexander ;  in  another  edition, 
however,  the  Bull  of  Alexander  is  given  in  full,  whilst  the 
Bull  of  Adrian  is  omitted.  "We  may  "well  leave  our  oppo- 
nents to  settle  this  matter  with  the  conflicting  editors  of  the 
Bullarium.  They,  probably  like  Baronius,  merely  copied 
the  Bull  of  Adrian  from  Matthew  Paris,  and  erred  in  doing 
so.  Labbe,  in  his  magnificent  edition  of  the  Councils,  also 
])ublishes  Adrian's  Bull,  but  then  he  expressly  tells  us  that 
it  is  copied  from  the  work  of  Matthew  Paris. 

We  have  thus,  as  far  as  the  limits  of  this  article  will 
allow,  examined  in  detail  the  various  arguments  which  sup- 
port the  genuineness  of  the  supposed  Bull,  and  now  it  only 
remains  for  us  to  conclude  that  there  are  no  sufficient 
grounds  for  accepting  that  document  as  the  genuine  work  of 
Pope  Adrian. 

Indeed,  the  Irish  nation  at  all  times,  as  if  instinctively, 


242  APPENDIX. 

shrunk  from  accepting  it  as  genuine,  and  unhesitatingly 
pronounced  it  an  Anglo-Norman  forgery.  We  have  already 
seen  how  even  Giraldus  Cambrensis  refers  to  the  doubts 
which  hael  arisen  regarding  the  Bull  of  Pope  Alexander ; 
but  we  have  at  hand  still  more  conclusive  evidence  that 
Adrian's  Bull  was  universally  rejected  by  our  people. 
There  is,  happily,  preserved  in  the  Barberini  Archives, 
Kome,  a  MS.  of  the  fourteenth  century,  containing  a  series 
of  official  papers  connected  with  the  Pontificate  of  John 
XXII.,  and  amongst  them  is  a  letter  from  the  Lord  Justici- 
ary and  the  Hoyal  Council  of  Ireland,  forwarded  to  Pome 
under  the  Poyal  Seal,  and  presented  to  His  Holiness  by 
William  of  Nottingham,  Canon  and  Precentor  of  St.  Pat- 
rick's Cathedral,  Dublin,  about  the  year  1325.  In  this 
important,  but  hitherto  unnoticed  document,  the  Irish  are 
accused  of  very  many  crimes,  among  which  is  insidiously 
introduced  the  rejection  of  the  supposed  Bulls : 

^^ Moreover^  they  assert  that  the  King  of  England^  under 
false  pretences  and  by  false  JBullsj  obtained  the  dominion  of 
Ireland^  and  this  opinion  is  commonly  held  by  them.'''' 
''  Asserentes  etiam  Dominum  Begem  Anglije  ex  falsa  sug- 
gestione  et  ex  falsis  Bullis  terram  Hibernioi  in  dominium 
impetrasse  ac  communiter  hoc  tenentes." 

This  national  tradition  was  preserved  unbroken  through- 
out the  turmoil  of  the  jfifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries,  and 
on  the  revival  of  our  historical  literature  in  the  beginning 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  was  registered  in  the  pages  of 
Lynch,  Stephen  White,  and  other  writers. 

It  will  be  well  also,  whilst  forming  our  judgment  regard- 
,  ing  this  supposed  Bull  of  Adrian,  to  hold  in  mind  the  dis- 
turbed state  of  society,  especially  in  Italy,  at  the  time  to 
which  it  refers.  At  the  present  day  it  would  be  no  easy 
E^fctter  indeed  for  such  a  forgery  to  survive  more  than  a  few 
weeks.     But  at  the  close  of  the  twelfth  century  it  was  far 


APPENDIX.  243 

otherwise.  Owing  to  the  constant  revolutions  and  disturb- 
ances that  then  prevailed,  the  Pontiff  was  oftentimes  obliged 
to  fly  from  city  to  city ;  frequently  his  papers  were  seized 
and  burned,  and  he  himself  detained  as  a  hostage  or  prisoner 
by  his  enemies.  Hence  it  is  that  several  forged  Bulls,  ex- 
amples of  which  are  given  in  " Camhrensis  JEversus,'^  date 
from  these  times.  More  than  one  of  the  grants  made  to  the 
ISTorman  families  are  now  believed  to  rest  on  such  forgeries ; 
and  that  the  Anglo-ISTorman  adventurers  in  Ireland  were  not 
strangers  to  such  deeds  of  darkness,  appears  from  the  fact 
that  a  matrix  for  forging  the  Papal  Seal  of  such  Bulls,  now 
preserved  in  the  P.  I.  Academy,  was  found  a  few  years  ago 
in  the  ruins  of  one  of  the  earliest  Anglo-Norman  monasteries 
founded  by  De  Courcy. 

The  circumstances  of  the  publication  of  the  Bull  by  Henry 
were  surely  not  calculated  to  disarm  suspicion.  Our  oppo- 
nents do  not  even  pretend  that  it  was  made  known  in  Ireland 
till  the  year  1175,  and  hence,  though  publicly  granted  with 
solemn  investiture,  as  John  of  Salisbury's  testimony  would 
imply,  and  though  its  record  was  deposited  in  the  public 
archives  of  the  kingdom,  this  Bull,  so  vital  to  the  interests 
of  the  Irish  Church,  should  have  remained  dormant  for 
twenty  years,  unnoticed  in  Rome,  unnoticed  by  Henry's 
courtiers,  still  more,  unnoticed  by  the  Irish  Bishops,  and  I 
will  add,  unnoticed  by  the  Continental  Sovereigns  so  jealous 
of  the  power  and  preponderance  of  the  English  Monarch. 
For  such  suppositions  there  is  indeed  no  parallel  in  the 
whole  history  of  investitures. 

It  is  seldom,  too,  that  the  hand  of  the  impostor  may  not 
be  detected  in  some  at  least  of  the  minor  details  of  the  spu- 
rious document.  In  the  present  instance  more  than  one 
ancient  MS.  preserves  the  concluding  formula  of  the  Bull : 
"  Datum  Romse,"  dated  from  Home.  Now  this  simple 
formula  would  suffice  of  itself  to  prove  the  whole  Bull  to  be 


244  APPENDIX. 

a  forgery.  Before  the  news  of  the  election  of  Pope  Adiian 
to  the  Chair  of  St.  Peter  could  reach  England,  that  Pontiflf 
was  obliged  to  seek  for  safety  in  flight  from  his  capital. 
Kome  was  in  revolt,  and  Arnold  of  Brescia  sought  to  renew 
there  a  spectre  of  the  old  Pagan  Republic.  John  of  Salis- 
bury, in  his  "  Poly cr aliens ^^"^  faithfully  attests  that,  on  his 
arrival  in  Italy,  the  Papal  Court  was  held  not  in  Pome,  but 
in  Beneventum :  it  was  in  this  city  he  presented  to  Pope 
Adrian  the  congratulations  of  Henry  II. ;  and  he  mentions 
his  sojourn  there  during  the  three  months  that  he  remained 
in  Italy.  This  is  farther  confirmed  by  the  Italian  chronicles. 
Baronius  saw  the  inconsistency  of  the  formula.  Datum 
Homce^  with  the  date  1155,  and  hence,  in  his  Annals,  he 
entered  Adrian's  Bull  under  the  year  1159  ;  but  if  this  date 
be  correct,  surely  then  that  Bull  could  not  have  been 
brought  to  Henry  by  John  of  Salisbury,  and  the  passage  of 
the  "  Metalogicus  "  referring  to  it,  must  at  once  be  admitted 
a  forgery.  Other  historians  have  been  equally  puzzled  to 
find  a  year  for  this  supposed  Bull.  For  instance,  O'Hal- 
loran,  in  his  History  of  Ireland,  whilst  admitting  that  the 
Irish  people  always  regarded  the  Bull  as  a  forgery,  refers  its 
date  to  the  year  1167,  that  is,  eight  years  after  the  death  of 
Pope  Adrian  IV. 

There  is  only  one  other  reflection  with  which  I  wish  to 
detain  the  reader.  The  condition  of  our  country,  and  the 
relations  between  Ireland  and  the  Englisli  King,  which  are 
set  forth  in  the  supposed  Bull,  are  precisely  those  of  the  year 
1172;  but  it  would  have  required  more  than  a  prophetic 
vision  to  have  anticipated  them  in  1155.  In  1155  Ireland 
was  not  in  a  state  of  turmoil  or  verging  towards  barbarism ; 
on  the  contrary,  it  was  rapidly  progressing  and  renewing  its 
claim  to  religious  and  moral  pre-eminence.  I  will  add,  that 
Pope  Adrian,  who  had  studied  under  Irish  masters,  knew 
well   this  flourishing  condition  of  our  country.     In   1172, 


APPENDIX.  245 

ho^«^ever,  a  sad  change  had  come  over  our  island.  Four 
years  of  continual  warfare,  and  the  ravages  of  the  Anglo- 
Norman  filibusterers,  since  their  first  landing  in  1168,  had 
well-nigh  reduced  Ireland  to  a  state  of  barbarism,  and  the 
authentic  letters  of  Alexander  III.,  in  1172,  faithfully  de- 
scribe its  most  deplorable  condition.  Moreover,  an  expedi- 
tion of  Henry  to  Ireland,  which  would  not  be  an  invasion, 
and  yet  would  merit  the  homage  of  the  Irish  princes,  was 
simply  an  impossibility  in  1155.  But  owing  to  the  special 
circumstances  of  the  kingdom,  such  in  reality  was  the  expe- 
dition of  Henry  in  1172.  He  set  out  for  Ireland,  not  avow- 
edly to  invade  and  conquer  it,  but  to  curb  the  insolence-  and 
to  punish  the  deeds  of  pillage  of  his  own  Norman  free- 
booters. Hence,  during  his  stay  in  Ireland  he  fought  no 
battle  and  made  no  conquest ;  his  first  measures  of  severity 
were  directed  against  soaie  of  the  most  lawless  of  the  early 
Norman  adventurers,  and  this  more  than  anything  else  recon- 
ciled the  native  Princes  to  his  military  display.  In  return  he 
received  from  a  majority  of  the  Irish  Chieftains  the  empty 
title  of  Ard-righ,  or  "  Head  Sovereign,"  which  did  not  sup- 
pose any  conquest  on  his  part,  and  did  not  involve  any 
surrender  of  their  own  hereditary  rights.  Such  a  state  of 
things  could  not  have  been  imagined  in  1155 ;  and  yet  it  is 
one  which  is  implied  in  the  spurious  Bull  of  the  much- 
maligned  Pontifi",  Adrian  the  Fourth. 

t  P.  F.  M. 


PA.IIT    II. 

THE  INSUERECTION  OF  1641. 

ANALYSIS     OF     THE     LEGEND,    AND     EXPOSURE     OF     SIR    JOHlf 
temple's    FALSIFICATIONS. 

[In  his  "  Vindkim  Eibernicce,''^  first  published  in  Philadelphia,  in 
1819,  ISIathew  Carey  gives  the  story  told  by  Sir  John  Temple  of  the 
pretended  "Rebellion"  of  1641,  with  an  analysis  of  the  legend,  in 
which  (even  from  English  authorities)  the  contradictions  and  exag- 
gerations of  Temple  and  Borlase  are  exposed.  The  full  text  is  ap- 
pended.] 

21ie  Insurrection  in  1641.      Was  there  a  General  Conspira- 
cy of  the  Irish  Catholics,  in  that  year^  to  Murder 
the  Protestants? 

"A  perjur'd  wretch,  whom  falsehood  clothes, 
Ev'n  like  a  garment — 
WTio  in  the  day's  broad  searching  eye, 
Makes  God  bear  witness  to  a  lie." — ChurcMU. 

The  decision  of  this  question  is  attended  with  far  more 
difficulty  than  any  of  those  hitherto  presented  to  the  view 
of  the  reader.  The  nature  of  the  case  does  not  admit  of  the 
same  kind  of  evidence  as  I  have  been  hitherto  enabled  to 
produce,  and  which,  I  flatter  myself,  has  been  found  irre- 
sistible. 

The  tale  of  this  conspiracy  has  been  so  universally  credit- 
ed ;  so  large  a  portion  of  the  possessors  of  confiscated  prop- 
erty in  Ireland  have  been  for  one  hundred  and  eighty  years 
interested  in  afibrding  it  support  and  countenance ;  so  much 


APPENDIX.  247 

art  and  talent  have  been,  during  that  time,  employed  in  giv- 
ing it  an  air  of  plausibility ;  there  is  so  much  difficulty  in 
proving  a  negative  in  any  case,  more  particularly  in  the 
present  one,  which  is  naturally,  and  has  been  moreover  art- 
fully, involved  in  mystery ;  and  it  is  so  extremely  arduous 
an  undertaking  to  operate  upon  the  public  mind,  when  im- 
bued with  inveterate  prejudices,  that  the  task  is  truly  Her-- 
culean,  and  I  should  have  abandoned  it  as  impracticable,  but 
that  the  narrative  itself  is  replete  with  so  many  incredible 
and  incongruous  circumstances,  as  to  carry  strong  internal 
evidence  of  fraud. 

In  order  to  give  the  story  fair  plaj^,  and  to  enable  the 
reader  to  form  a  correct  opinion  on  the  subject,  with  all  the 
evidence  before  him,  I  shall  give  the  v/hole  account  of  ^sgi 
discovery  of  the  plot,  as  it  stands  in  Temple's  History  of  the 
Iiish  Rebellion,  the  authority  almost  solely  relied  on  by  all 
the  subsequent  writers  on  the  subject.  Some  slight  extracts 
are  added  from  Borlase,  containing  a  few  additional  par- 
ticulars. 

To  simplify  the  examination,  the  narrative  is  divided  into 
short  sentences,  each  containing  perfect  sense,  to  oblige  the 
reader  to  pause  and  reflect,  as  he  proceeds. 

The  discussion  of  tliis  question  being  one  of  the  main  ob- 
jects of  the  woik,  the  reader's  calm  and  candid  consideratioH 
of  it  is  earnestly  invoked.  It  is  hoped  that,  laying  aside  all 
preconceived  opinions  on  the  subject,  he  will  revolve  it  in  his 
mind,  as  if  it  were  wholly  new,  and  he  had  now,  for  the  first 
time  in  his  life,  to  form  a  decision  on  it. 

There  are,  unfortunately,  too  many  to  whom  a  comj)liance 
with  this  request  is  impossible :  and  indeed  a  larg^g  propor- 
tion of  mankind  can  never  command  independence  of  mind 
enough  even  to  examine  evidence  that  militates  with  their 
early,  and,  of  course,  inveterate  prejudices;  far  less  ever  to 
abandon  those  prejudices.     There  are,  therefore,  thousands 


248  APPENDIX. 

who  would  as  soon  doubt  any  of  the  demonstrations  of 
Euclid,  or  the  existence  of  the  solar  system,  as  the  existence 
of  the  universality  of  the  plot  of  "  the  execrable  rehellion  of 
1641." 

To  this  contracted  class  I  do  not  address  myself:  with 
them  I  have  no  fellowship  :  "  Ea^cu  though  one  were  to  rise 
from  the  dead,"  his  testimony  would  not  convince  them. 
Let  them  hug  the  chains  of  ^heir  bigoted  prejudices.  The 
appeal  is  to  that  respectable  description  of  readers,  whose 
minds,  open  to  conviction,  are  at  all  times  ready  to  yield 
to  the  force  of  evidence,  how  strongly  soever  it  may  militate 
against  opinions  which  have  '*  grown  with  their  growth." 
The  favorable  decision  of  one  such  reader,  vvith  a  clear  head 
and  sound  heart,  would  outv/eigh  the  disapprobation  of  a 
whole  army  of  the  slaves  of  prejudice. 

Extracts  from  Temple's  History  of  the  Irish  Hehellianj^ 

1.  "  Sir  William  Cole,  upon  the  very  first  apprehensions 
of  something  that  ho  conceived  to  be  hatching  among  the 
Irish,  did  write  a  letter  to  the  lords  justices  and  council, 
dated  the  11th  of  October,  1641. 

2.  "Wherein  he  gave  them  notice  of  the  great  resort 
made  to  sir  Pheliin  O'Neal,  in  the  county  of  Tyrone,  as  also 
to  the  house  of  the  lord  3Iacguire,  in  the  county  of  Fer- 
managh, and  that  by  several  suspected  persons,  fit  instru- 
ments for  mischief; 

3.  "As  also  that  the  said  lord  Macguire  had  of  late  made 
several  journies  into  the  Pale  and  other  places,  and  had  spent 
his  time  onuch  in  icriting  letters  and  sending  despatches 
abroad. 

4.  "  These  letters  ictre  received  by  the  lords  justices  and 
council ; 

5.  "And  they,  in  answer  to  them,  required  him  to  be 
very  vigilant  and  industrious  to  find  out  what  should  be 

*  The  I'eader  will  please  to  observe,  that  these  extracts  are  taken  verhatirn.  fi'oru 
the  original  work ;  and,  unless  where  otherwise  distinctly  marked  by  a  dash,  form  an 
unbroken  consecutive  series. 


APPENDIX.  249 

the  occasion  of  these  several  meetings,  and  speedily  to  adver- 
tise them  thered  f,  or  of  any  other  particular  that  he  con- 
ceived might  tend  to  the  public  service  of  the  state." 

6.  "  They  [the  lords  justices]  had  not  any  certain  notice 
of  the  general  conspiracy  of  the  Irish,  until  the  22d  of 
October,  in  the  very  evening  before  the  day  appointed  for 
the  surprise  of  the  castle  and  city  of  Dublin. 

7.  "  The  conspirators  being,  many  of  them,  arrived  within 
the  city,  and  having  that  day  met  at  the  Lion  tavern,  in 
Copper  alley,  and  there  tui-ning  the  drawer  out  of  the  room, 
ordered  their  afiairs  together,  and  drunk  healths  upon  their 
knees  to  the  happy  success  of  the  next  morning's  v/ork. 

8.  "  Owen  O'Connally,  a  gentleman  of'  a  mere  Irish  fam- 
ily^  but  one  that  had  long  lived  among  the  English,  and 
been  trained  up  in  the  true  Protestant  religion,  came  unto 
the  lord  justice  Parsons,  about  JsINE  o'clock  that  even- 
ing !  ! 

9.  "  And  made  him  a  broken  relation  of  a  great  con- 
spiracy for  the  seizing  upon  his  majesty's  castle  of  Dublin. 

10.  ''He  gave  him  the  names  of  some  of  the  chief  con- 
spirators! assured  him  that  they  were  come  up  expressly 
to  the  town  for  the  same  purpose ;  and  that  next  morning 
they  would  undoubtedly  attemj)t,  and  surely  effect  it,  if 
their  design  were  not  speedily  prevented ; 

11.  "And  that  he  had  understood  all  this  from  Hugh 
Mac-Mahon,  one  of  the  chief  conspirators,  who  was  then  in 
town,  and  came  up  out  thh  very  same  afternoon^  for  the  ex- 
ecution of  the  plot ; 

12.  "And  with  v/hom  indeed  he  had  been  drinking  soTne- 
what  liberally  ^  and  as  the  truth  is,  did  then  make  such  a 
broken  relation  of  a  matter  that  seemed  so  incredible  in 
itself,  as  that  his  lordship  gave  very  little  belief  to  it  at 
frst  I !  ! 

13.  "In  regard  it  came  from  an  obscure perso7i,  and  one, 
as  he  conceived,  somewhat  distempered  at  that  time. 

14.  "But  howsoever,  the  lord  Parsons  gave  him  order  to 
go  again  to  Mac-Mahon!  ! !  and  get  out  of  him  as  much 
certainty  of  the  plot! ! !  with  as  many  particular  circum- 
stances, as  he  could !  !  !  straitly  charging  him  to  return  back 
unto  him  the  same  evening ! ! ! 


250  APPENDIX. 

15.  "And  in  the  mean  time,  having  by  strict  commands 
given  to  the  constable  of  the  castle,  taken  order  to  have  the 
gates  thereof  well  guarded^  as  also  with  the  Tnayor  and 
sheriffs  of  the  city  to  have  strong  watches  set  upon  all  parts 
of  the  same,  and  to  make  stay  of  all  strangers, 

16.  "He  ^y!%Yii  privately ! !  about  ten  of  the  clock  thai 
night,  to  the  lord  Borlase's  house  loithout  the  town,  and 
there  acquainted  him  with  what  he  understood  from  O'Con- 
ally. 

17.  "  They  sent  for  such  of  the  council  as  they  knew  then 
to  be  in  the  toivn.^ 

18.  "  But  there  came  only  unto  them  that  night  sir 
Thomas  Rotheram  and  sir  Robert  Meredith,  chancellor  of 
the  exchequer :  v/itli  these  they  fell  into  consultation  lohat 
was  fit  to  he  done!  !  !  !  attending  the  return  of  O'Conally. 

19.  "  And  finding  that  he  staid  somewhat  longer  than  the 
time  prefixed,  they  sent  out  in  search  after  him  ; 

20.  "  And  found  him  seized  on  by  the  watch,  and  so  he 
had  been  carried  away  to  prison,  and  the  discovery  that 
night  disappointed, 

21.  "  Had  not  one  of  the  lord  Parson's  servants,  expressly 
sent,  amongst  others,  to  walk  the  streets,  and  attend  the  mo- 
tions of  the  said  0'  Conally,  come  in,  and  rescued  him,  and 
brousrht  him  to  the  lord  Borlase's  house. 


*  Although  I  shall  analyze  this  precious  nan-ative  at  length,  before  this  chapter  is 
closed,  I  cannot  refi-ain  from  calling  the  reader's  attention  to  these  two  paragi-aphs, 
16  and  17,  as  they  alone  would  be  sufficient  with  impartial  men,  to  discredit  the  whole 
plot.  Sir  William  Parsons,  being  in  the  city  of  Dublin,  at  nine  o'clock  at  night,  is 
infoi-med  of  a  plot  to  explode  in  thirteen  hours. — Instead  of  at  once  seizing  the  con- 
spirators, he  sends  a  drunken  man,  whoso  absence  must  have  excited  suspicion,  to 
make  further  discoveries — and  at  ten  o'clock,  he  goes  '•'■privately"^  to  lord  Borlase's 
house  "  out  of  toion"' — and  then  sends  for  such  of  the  council  as  he  knew  to  be  then 
'"'•  in  town.''^  Was  there  ever  a  more  Munchausen  tale?  It  is  hardly  calculated  to 
impose  on  an  idiot.  How  far  out  of  town  sir  John's  house  was,  cannot  be  ascertained 
— suppose  only  a  mile.  Then  he  walked  a  mile — the  messenger  another — and  such 
of  the  council  as  were  found,  had  to  walk  a  third  mile,  and  for  what  ?  To  be  so  far 
removed  from  the  scene  of  action,  and  from  the  means  of  appl}-ing  a  remedy  to  the 
impending  evils,  as  to  give  every  opportunity  to  the  conspirators  to  insure  their  suc- 
cess I  Here  was  a  most  pernicious  delay,  when  every  moment  was  invaluable  !  !  Had 
there  been  any  reality  in  the  plot,  sir  Vrilliam  would  have  remained  "m  toicn^'' — 
collected  all  of  the  coimcil  there  at  the  time — sent  a  messenger  "  otct  of  town  "  for 
sir  .John  Borlase — and  then  collected  the  whole  body  at  then-  posts,  where  they  ought 
to  be  on  such  an  emergency. 


APPENDIX.  251 

22.  "  O'Conally  having  somewhat  recovered  himself  from 
his  distemper,  occasioned  partly,  as  he  said  himself,  by  the 
horror  of  the  plot  revealed  to  him,  partly  by  his  too  liberal 
drinking  with  Mac-Mahon,  that  he  might  the  more  easily 
gv-^t  away  from  him,  (he  beginning  much  to  suspect  and  feai 
his  discovery  of  the  plot,) 

23.  "  Confirmed  what  he  had  formerly  related,  and  added 
these  further  particulars  set  down  in  his  examination,  as 
foUoweth  : 

"  Tlie  examination  of  Owen    0'  Conally^  gentleman^  taken 
before  us^  luhose  names  ensue,   October  22,  1641. 
"  Who  being  duly  sworn  and  examined,  saith  : 

24.  "  That  he  being  at  Moniniore,  in  the  county  of  Lon- 
donderry, on  Tuesday  last  !  he  received  a  letter  from  colonel 
Hugh  Oge  Mac-Mahon,  desiring  him  to  come  to  Gonaught, 
in  the  county  of  Monaghan,  and  to  be  with  him  on  'Wednes- 
day or  Til ursday  last ! 

25.  ''  Whereupon  he,  this  examinate,  came  to  Gonaught 
on  Wednesday  night  last ; 

26.  "  And  finding  the  said  Hugh  come  to  Dublin,  fol- 
lowed him  hither ; 

27.  "  He  came  hither  about  six  of  the  clock  this  evenmg  f 

28.  "  And  forthwith  went  to  the  lodging  of  the  said 
Hugh,  to  the  house  near  the  Boat,  in  Oxmantown ; 

29.  "And  there  he  found  the  said  Hugh,  and  came  vdtli 
the  said  Hugh  into  the  town,  near  the  pillory,  to  the  lodging 
of  the  lord  Macguire  ; 

30.  "  Where  they  found  not  the  lord  within ;  and  there 
they  drank  a  cup  of  beer  ; 

31.  "  And  then  luent  back  again  to  the  said  Hugh  kis 
lodging ;  * 

32.  "  He  saith,  that  at  the  lord  Maguire  his  lodging,  the 
said  Hugh  told  him  that  there  were  and  would  be  this  night 
great  numbers  of  noblemen  and  gentlemen  of  the  Irish 
Jpapists,  from  all  the  parts  of  the  kingdom,  in  this  town ; 

33.  "  Who  with  himself  had  determined  to  take  the  castle  of 
Dublin,  and  possess  themselves  of  all  his  majesty's  ammuni- 
tion there,  to-morroiv  morning,  being  Saturday ; 

34.  "  And  that  they  intended  first  to  batter  the  chimnies 

*  Here  again  is  a  dodging  '■•into  toivn "'  and  ''oiU  of  loiC7i,^' 


252.  APPENDIX. 

of  the  said  to^vn ;  and  if  the  city  would  not  yield,  then  to 
batter  down  the  houses  ; 

35.  "  And  so  to  cut  off  all  the  Protestants  that  would  not 
join  with  them ! 

36.  "  He  further  saith,  that  the  said  Hugh  then  told  him, 
that  the  Irish  had  prepared  men  in  all  parts  of  the  kingdom, 
to  destroy  all  the  English  inhabiting  there,  to-morrow  morn- 
ing by  ten  of  the  clock  !  ! 

37.  "  And  that  in  all  the  sea-ports,  and  other  towns  in 
the  kingdom,  all  the  Protestants  should  be  killed  this  night  I ! 
and  that  all  the  posts  that  could  be,  could  not  prevent  it ; 

38.  "  And  further  saith,  that  he  moved  the  said  Hugh  to 
forbear  executing  of  that  business,  and  to  discover  it  to  the 
state,  for  the  saving  of  his  own  estate  ; 

39.  "  Who  said  he  could  not  help  it ;  but  said,  that  they 
did  owe  their  allegiance  to  the  king,  and  Avould  pay  him  all 
his  rights  :  but  that  they  did  this  for  the  tyrannical  govern- 
ment that  was  over  them,  and  to  imitate  Scotland,  which 
got  a  privilege  by  that  course ; 

40.  "  And  he  further  saith,  that  when  he  was  with  the 
said  Hugh,  in  his  lodging  the  second  time,  the  said  Hugh 
swore,  that  he  should  not  go  out  of  his  lodging  that  night ; 
but  told  him  that  he  should  go  with  him  the  next  morning 
to  the  castle  ;  and  said,  if  this  matter  were  discovered,  some 
body  should  die  for  it  ; 

40^.  "  Whereupon  this  examinate  feigned  some  necessity 
for  his  easement ;  went  down  out  of  the  chamber ;  and  left 
his  sword  in  pawn ;  and  the  said  Hugh  sent  his  man  down 
with  him ;  and  when  this  examinate  came  down  into  the 
yard,  and  finding  an  opportunity,  he,  this  examinate,  learpt 
over  a  wall  and  two  pales  !  !  !  and  so  came  to  the  lord  jus- 
tice Parsons. 

"October  22,  1641. 

William  Parsons, 
Thomas  Rotheram, 
Robert  Meredith, 
Owen  O'Conally." 

41.  "  How  it  came  to  pass  that  the  other  lord  justice  at- 
tested not  the  examination,  {it  being  took  in  his  house,  he 
2)resent,)  hath  begot  some  doubts,  evidencing  how  (since) 
counsels  swerved  into  cabals." 


APPENDIX.  253 

42.  ^'  Hereupon  the  lords  took  present  order  to  have  a 
watch  privately  set  iipon  the  lodging  of  3fac-Mahon^  as  also 
upon  the  lord  3Iacguire  !  !  !  !  !  * 

43.  "  And  so  they  sat  up  all  that  night  in  consxdtation  !  !  ! 
having  far  stronger  presumptions  upon  this  latter  examina- 
tion taken  than  any  ways  at  first  they  conlcl  entertain. 

44.  "  The  lords  justices,  upon  a  further  consideration, 
there  being  come  unto  them  early  next  morning !  several 
others  of  the  privy  council,  sent  before  day,  and  seized  %ipon 
Mac-Machon,  then  icith  his  servant  in  his  oimi  lodging. 

45.  "  They  at  first  made  some  little  resistance  with  their 
drawn  swords  ;  but  finding  themselves  over-mastered,  pres- 
ently yielded. 

46.  "And  so  they  were  brought  before  the  lords  justices 
and  council,  still  sitting  at  the  lord  Borlase's  house,  f 

47.  "  Where,  upon  examination,  he  did  without  much 
difficulty  confess  the  plot,  resolutely  telling  them,  that 
on  that  very  day^  all  the  forts  and  strong  places  in  Ireland, 
would  he  taken  !  ! 

48.  "  That  he,  with  the  lord  Macguire,  Hugh  Birn,  cap- 
tain Brian  O'JSTeil,  and  several  other  Irish  gentlemen,  were 
come  up  expressly  to  surprise  the  castle  of  Dublin. 

49.  "  That  twenty  men  out  of  each  county  in  the  king- 
dom !  !  I  were  to  be  here  to  join  with  them.  \ 

50.  "  That  all  the  lords  and  gentlemen  in  the  kingdom, 
that  were  p>ap)ists,  were  engaged  in  this  plot  !  !  ! 

51.  "  That  what  was  that  day  to  he  done  in  other  parts  of 
the  country,  was  so  far  advanced  by  that  time,  as  it  was  im- 
possible for  the  wit  of  man  to  prevent  it ! 

52.  "  And  withal  told  them,  that  it  was  true  they  had  him 
in  their  power,  and  might  use  him  how  they  pleased,  but  he 
was  sure  he  should  be  revensed." 


*  The  lords  jiistices  have  information  of  a  plot  to  explode  in  a  few  hours,  whereby 
they  are  to  be  murdered,  and  as  a  precautionary  measure,  "se<  a  watch  privately 
'uX)on  the  lodgings^''  of  the  chief  conspirators  '.  I 

t  It  appears,  therefore,  that  the  council  was  sitting  all  night  "a<  lord  Borlase''s 
house,''  "  out  of  town,'''  so  as  to  leave  the  conspirators  free  scope  to  carry  their  proj- 
ects into  execution  "  in  town.'"    Was  ever  an  imposture  so  absurdly  compacted  ? 

X  There  are  thirty-two  counties  in  Ireland,  some  of  them  one  hu7idred  and  fifty 
miles  from  Dublin — and  twenty  men  were  to  he  marched  from  each  county,  to  e;c© 
cute  a  plot  requiring  the  utmost  secresy  I  !    An  admii-able  scheme  1 


254  APPENDIX. 

53.  Extract  from  "  Tlie  lords  chief  justices'  letter  to  tlie 
lord  lieutenant,  October  25,  1G41,  sent  by  Owen  O'Conally, 
tlie  first  discoverer.  * 

"  May  it  please  your  lordship, 

54.  "  On  Friday,  the  22nd  of  this  month,  after  nine 
o'clock  at  niqht^  this  bearer,  Owen  O'Conally,  SERVANT 
TO  SIR  JOHN  CLOTWORTHY,  KNIGHT,  came  to  me, 
the  lord  justice  Parsons,  to  my  house, 

55.  "  And  in  great  secresie  (as  indeed  the  cause  did  re- 
quire,) discovered  unto  me  a  most  wicked  and  damnable 
conspiracy,  plotted,  contrived,  and  intended  to  be  also  acted 
by  some  evil-affected  Irish  Papists  here. 

56.  "  The  plot  was  on  the  then  next  morning,  Saturday, 
the  23d  of  October,  being  St.  Ignatius's  clay,  about  nine  of 
the  clock !  to  surprise  his  majesty's  castle  of  Dublin,  his 
majesty's  chief  strength  of  this  kingdom  ;  wherein  also  is  the 
principal  magazine  of  his  majesty's  arms  and  munition. 

57.  "  And  it  was  agreed,  it  seems  among  them,  that  at 
the  same  hour,  all  other  his  majesty'' s  forts  and  magazines 
of  arms  and  munition  in  this  kingdom  !  !  should  be  sur- 
prised by  others  of  those  conspirators  : 

58.  "  And  farther,  that  all  the  Protestants  and  English 
throughout  the  lohole  kingdom,  that  would  not  join  with 
them,  should  be  cut  of!'!  !  and  so  those  Papists  should  then 
become  possessed  of  the  government  and  kingdom  at  the 
same  instant. 

59.  "As  soon  as  I  had  that  intelligence,  I  then  immedi- 
ately repaired  to  the  lord  justice  Borlase ;  and  thereupon 
we  instantly  assembled  the  council. 

60.  "  And  having  sate  all  that  night  !  !  !  also  all  the  next 
day,  the  23d  of  October,  in  regard  of  the  short  time  left  us 
for-  the  consultation  of  so  great  and  weighty  a  matter, 
although  it  was  not  possible  for  us,  upon  so  few  hours' 
warning,  to  prevent  those  other  great  mischiefs  which  were 


*  Thus  it  appears  that  the  lords  justices  did  not  think  it  necessary  to  write  the 
lord  lieiitenant,  then  in  London,  till  IMonday  the  25th,  respecting  a  conspiracy  for  the 
destruction  of  "all the  Protestants  in  Ireland  that  would  not  join  it,"  which  was  to 
have  exploded  on  the  23d  1 


APPENDIX.  255- 

to  be  acted,  even  at  the  same  hour  and  at  so  great  a  dis* 
tance,  in  all  the  other  parts  of  the  kingdom ;  * 

61.  "  Yet  such  was  our  industry  therein,  having  caused 
the  castle  to  he  that  night  strengthened  with  armed  men^  and 
the  city  guarded,  as  the  wicked  councils  of  those  evil  per- 
sons, by  the  great  mercy  of  God  to  us,  became  defeated,  so 
as  they  were  not  able  to  act  that  part  of  their  treachery, 
which  indeed  was  principal. 

62.  "And  which,  if  they  could  have  effected,  would  have 
rendered  the  rest  of  their  purposes  the  more  easy. 

63.  "  Having  so  secured  the  castle,  we  forthwith  laid 
about  for  the  ap^^rehension  of  as  many  of  the  offenders  as 
we  could,  many  of  them  having  come  to  this  city  but  that 
night,  intendiug,  it  seems,  the  next  morning,  to  act  their 
parts  in  those  treacherous  and  bloody  crimes. 

64.  "  The  first  man  apprehended  was  one  Hugh  Mac- 
Mahon,  Esq.,  (grandson  to  the  traitor  Tyrone,)  a  gentleman 
of  good  fortune  in  the  county  of  Monaghan,  who,  with 
others,  vms  taken  that  inorning  in  Dublin,  having,  a,t  the 
time  of  their  apprehension,  offered  a  little  resistance  with 
their  swords  draAvn  ;  but  finding  those  we  employed  against 
them  more  in  number,  and  better  armed,  yielded. 

65.  "  He,  upon  examination  before  us,  at  first  denied  all ; 
but  in  the  end,  when  he  saw  we  laid  it  home  to  him,  he 
confessed  enough  to  destroy  himself,  and  impeach  some 
others,  as  by  a  copy  of  his  examination  herewith  sent,  may 
appear  to  your  lordship. 

66.  "  We  then  committed  him  until  Ave  might  have  fur- 
ther time  to  examine  him  again,  our  time  being  become  more 
needful  to  be  employed  in  action  for  securing  this  place, 
than  examining.  This  Mac-Mahon  had  been  abroad,  and 
served  the  King  of  Spain  as  a  lieutenant  colonel. 

67.  "  Upon  conference  with  him  and  others! ! !  and  call- 
ing to  mind  a  letter  ive  received  the  iveek  be-fore  from  sir 
William  Cole!  !  !  a  copy  whereof  we  send  your  lordship 
here  inclosed,  we  gathered,  that  the  lord  3Tacguire  was  to  he 
an  actor  in  surprising  the  castle  of  Dublin  !  !  !  !  !  \ 

*  "  Which  were  to  be  acted,  even  at  the  same  hour,  m  all  other  parts  of  the  king- 
dom " — but  which  were  not  acted,  nor  attempted. 

t  After  ha\ing  set  a  guard  on  his  house  the precedmg  night,  they  required  all  this 
variety  of  mfonnation,  to  '■'■gather  that  the  lord  Macguire  icas  to  be  an  actor  in 
surpiUsing  the  castle  of  Duhlin  <  " 


256  APPENDIX. 

08.  "  Wherefore  we  held  it  necessaiy  to  secure  him  im- 
mediately, thereby  also  to  startle  and  deter  the  rest,  when 
they  found  him  laid  fast." 

Extracts  from  JBorlase's  "  History  of  the  Execrable  Irish 

Hebellion.^'' 

G9.  ''  In  the  interim,  the  lord    Parsons,   (being  touched 

\vith  the  relation,)  repaired,  about  ten  of  the  clock  at  night, 

to  the  lord  Borlase,  at  Chichester  house,  without  the  town ; 

70.  "  And  disclosed  to  him  what  O'Conally  had  imparted  ; 
which  made  so  sensible  an  impression  on  his  colleague,  as 
(the  discoverer  being  let  go,)  he  grew  infinitely  concerned 
thereat,  having  none  to  punish,  if  the  story  should  prove 
false,  or  means  to  learn  more,  were  it  true. 

71.  "In  the  disturbance  of  which  perplexity,  Owen 
O'Conally  comes,  (or,  as  others  write,  was  brought,)  where 
the  lords  justices  were  then  met ;  sensible  that  his  discovery 
was  not  thoroughly  believed,  professing  that  whatever  he 
had  acquainted  the  lord  Parsons  with,  (touching  the  con- 
spiracy,) was  true  : 

72.  "And  could  he  but  repose  himself,  {the  effects  of 
di'inh  being  still  iqyoii  him,)  he  should  discover  more. 

73.  "  Whereupon  he  had  the  conveniency  of  a  bed.'''' 


74.  "In  the  interim,  the  lords  justices  summoned  as 
many  of  the  council  as  they  could  give  notice  to,  to  their 
assistance  that  night  at  Chichester  house. 

75.  "Sir  Thomas  Potheram,  and  Sir  Robert  Meredith, 
chancellor  of  the  exchequer,  came  immediately  to  them. 

76.  "They  then  with  all  diligence  secured  the  gates  of 
the  city,  *  with  such  as  they  could  most  confide  in,  and 
strengthened  the  warders  of  the  castle,  (which  were  a  few  in- 
considerable men,)  with  their  foot  guard,  \  usually  attending 
their  persons,  charging  the  mayor   and  his  brethren  to  be 

*  "They  secured  the  gates  of  the  city."  That  is  to  say,  the  conspirators  were 
"i'?i  the  towiV—axiA  they  '■'■out  o/ «o?c?i "—they  therefore  must  have  shut  them- 
Bolves  out. 

+  '•  The  foot  guard."  Thus  the  safety  of  the  city  was  confided,  at  a  time  of  such 
imminent  danger,  to  '■'■the  warders,''' '■'■  a.  few  incorisiderable  men,"  and  "the foot- 
guard"  of  the  lords  justices,  '■'■  tisually  attending  their  ijersons,''' vftiich.  cannot  be 
presumed  to  have  been  more  than  ten  or  a  dozen  at  most ! 


APPENDIX.  257 

watchful  of  all  j^e^sons    that  should  walk    the   streets    that 
night///'' 


77.  "  Hugli  Oge  Mac-Mahorij  Esq.,  gTandson  by  Lis 
mother  to  the  traitor  Tir-Owen,  a  gentleman  of  good  fort- 
une in  the  county  of  Monaglian,  who  had  served  as  a  lieu- 
tenant-colonel in  the  king  of  Spain's  quarters,  was,  after 
some  little  resistance,  apprehended  before  day  in  his  oivn 
lodgings,  over  the  water,  near  the  Inns,  and  brought 
to  Chichester  house ; 

78.  "  Where,  upon  examination,  he  did,  v/ithout  much 
difficulty,  confess  the  plot,  resolutely  telling  them,  That  ON" 
THAT  VERY  DAY,  {it  icas  uow  about  five  in  the  morning y  the 
23d  of  Oct.,  1641  !  !  !)  that  all  the  forts  and  strong  places  in 
Ireland  would  be  taken,"  &c.,  (fee. 


79.  "  Before  Mac-Mahon  was  apprehended,  O'Conally, 
having  07i  his  repose  recovered  himself,  had  his  examination 
taken,  in  these  words  :  "   [as  before.] 

A.nalysis  of  the  foregoing  legend. 

I.  A  Roman  Catholic  colonel  is  engaged  in  a  plot,  the  ob- 
ject of  Avhich  is  "  to  massacre  all  the  Protestants  in  the 
kingdom^''  "  except  those  who  would  join "  in  murdering 
their  brethren. 

II.  This  colonel,  in  w^ant  of  a  confederate,  sends  about 
fifty  miles  to  O'Conally,  a  Protestant^  to  reveal  to  him  this 
project.  » 

III.  O'Conally,  who,  in  order  to  attach  importance  to  his 
testimony,  in  some  of  the  statements  is  styled  "  a  gentleman^'' 
is,  in  fact  and  in  truth,  merely  a  servant  to  Sir  John  Clot- 
worthy,  one  of  the  most  envenomed  enemies  of  the  Poman 
Catholics,  and,  of  course,  a  very  suitable  person  to  be  in- 
trusted with  such  a  secret,  and  very  worthy  to  b-3  sent  for 
to  a  place  distant  forty-five  miles. 

lY.  O'Conally  receives  a  letter  on  Tuesday,  \hQ  19th  of 


258  APPENDIX. 

October,  at  what  hour  is  not  known, — say  nine  ©""clock ; 
and,  iDliolly  ignorant  of  the  nature  of  the  affair  wliich  leads 
to  the  invitation,  makes  all  his  preparations  at  once,  and 
commences  his  journey,  we  will  suppose,  about  noon  the 
same  day. 

Y.  He  arrives  on  'Wednesday  night,  the  20th,  at  Con- 
aught,  after  a  journey  of  about  forty -five  miles  :  and  be  it 
observed,  en  2:>assanty  that  a  journey  of  forty-five  miles,  at 
that  period,  was  nearly  as  arduous  an  undertaking,  and  re- 
quired almost  as  much  preparation,  as  a  journey  of  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  at  present. 

YI.  Colonel  Mac-Mahon,  whose  invitation  had  given 
O'Conally  the  option  of  coming  on  Wednesday  OR  TJiursday, 
so  far  broke  his  engagement,  that  he  had  started,  on  Wednes- 
day, for  Dublin,  previous  to  O'Conally's  arrival,  which  took 
place  on  the  night  of  that  day. 

YII.  O'Conally,  nothing  discouraged  by  the  breach  of  en- 
gagement on  the  part  of  the  colonel,  follows  him  to  Dublin. 

YIIl.  He  arrives  in  that  city  on  the  memorable  Friday, 
the  22d  of  October,  "  about  six  o'clock  in  the  evening"  one 

HOUR  AFTER  SUNSET. 

IX.  Conaught,  in  Monaghan,  is  not  to  be  found  on  any 
map.  I  will  therefore  suppose  it  to  have  been  in  the  centre 
of  the  county. 

X.  Monimore,  by  Pinkerton's  map,  is  about  forty  miles 
in  a  direct  line  from- the  centre  of  the  county  of  Monaghan 
— and  this  centre  is  about  sixty  miles  also  in  a  direct  line 
from  Dublin.  The  whole  distance  must,  by  the  usual  circui- 
tous windings  of  the  road,  have  been  at  the  very  least  one 
hundred  a,nd  ten  miles. 

XI.  The  climate  of  Ireland  is  very  moist.  Eains  are  gen- 
erally abundant,  particularly  in  autumn.  Of  course,  the 
roads  at  that  season  were  very  probably  miry,  and  difficult 
to  travel. 


APPENDIX,  259 

XII.  It  thus  appears,  tliat  O'Conally  has  performed  a 
journey  of  about  forty-five  iniles  in  a  day  and  a  half ;  that 
is,  from  mid-day  on  Tuesday,  to  Wednesday  night :  and  a 
hundred  and  ten  in  three  days  and  a  half,  at  a  season  of  the 
year,  when  the  sun  hose  about  seven,  and  set  about 
FIVE  ! !  and  this  exploit  was  accomplished  at  a  time  when 
there  were  no  diligences,  post-coaches,  post-chaises,  or  steam- 
boats, to  insure  exj^edition ;  and  when,  moreover,  the  roads 
were  in  all  probability  in  very  bad  order. 

XIII.  Nothing  discouraged  by  the  fatigue  of  his  journey 
of  a  hundred  and  ten  miles,  nor  by  his  previous  disappoint- 
ment, nor  by  the  daikness  of  the  evening,  he  commences  a 
search  for  the  lodgings  of  an  entire  stranger,  who  had  arrived 
that  evening  !  Wonderful  to  tell,  and  impossible  to  be  be- 
lieved, he  is  said  to  have  succeeded,  and  to  have  found  out 
the  stranger's  lodgings  !  And  let  it  not  be  forgotten,  that 
on  this  night  the  moon  was  invisible^'  a  circumstance  admi- 
rably calculated  to  aid  his  researches  ! 

XIY.  Although  the  colonel  was  engaged  in  a  plot  to  ex- 
plode 7iext  day,  at  teii  o'' clock,  A.  31.,  O'Conally  finds  him 
alone,  between  six  and  seven  f  o'' clock  on  Friday  evening^  in 
the  suburbs.  He  appears  to  have  seen  none  of  his  brother 
conspirators  before  nine,  at  which  time  O'Conally  left  him. 

XY.  The  colonel  takes  him  to  the  lodgings  of  a  brother 
conspirator  "  into  town^''  at  the  distance,  probably,  of  a  mile 
or  two. 

XYI.  This  conspirator  not  being  at  home,  the  colonel, 
after  having  taken  a  drink  of  beer  with  his  new  friend, 

*  Extract  of  a  letter  from  the  Vice-Provost  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania. 
"Dear  Sir,  January  6,  1819. 

"I  find  that  it  was  Neto  Moon^  at  Dublin,  at  about  two  o'clock  in  the  morning 
of  the  24th  of  October,  1611,  O.  S.  Consequentlj'  the  moon  must  have  been  invisibla 
on  the  whole  night  of  the  22cl-23cl  of  that  month. 

"Your?,  etc., 
"Mr,  M.  Caret.  "R.  M.  PATTERSON." 

1  It  must  have  required  some  time  to  find  out  Mac-Mahon's  lodgings. 


260  APPENDIX. 

freely  communicates  "  that  there  were  and  would  be,  this 
night,  great  numbers  of  noblemen  and  gentlemen  of  the 
Irish,  from  all  parts  of  the  kingdom,"  v/liose  object  was  ''  ta 
cut  off  all  the  Protestants  that  looulcl  not  join  tJiem.'''' 

XVII.  And  they  then  went  back  to  "  the  said  Hugh  his 
lodgings^''  in  the  suburbs,  "near  Oxmantown,"  Avliere 
O'Conally  drank  till  he  was  drunk. 

XVIII.  O'Conally  notwithstanding  this  untoward  circum- 
stance, and  that  he  was,  two  hours  afterwards,  unable  to  re- 
late a  consistent  story,  was  alert  enough  "  to  leap  over  a 
wall,''''  and  afterwards  over  ''^  two  pales P 

XIX.  Notwithstanding  his  disordered  state,  he  was  able 
to  find  his  way  to  sir  "William  Parsons,  into  the  town,  to 
whom  he  communicated  the  whole  affair. 

XX.  Here  let  us  observe  that  this  very  sir  William  had 
received  information  of  a  plot,  several  days  before,  from  sir 
William  QiqXq,  '•'•  upon  the  very  first  apprehension  of  some- 
thing he  conceived  to  he  hatching  among  the  Jrish^ 

XXI.  And  further,  that  this  lord  justice  had  written  to 
sir  William  Cole,  "  to  be  very  vigilant  in  inquiring  into  the 
occasion  of  those  meetings  ; "  whereby  it  appears  that  he 
had  suspicions  of  a  conspiracy. 

XXII.  Notwithstanding  this  information,  sir  William 
Parsons,  who  was  jealous  of  some  plot  "  hatching  among  the 
Irish ;  "  who,  of  course,  ought  to  be  on  the  qui  vive,  and  to 
take  alarm  on  the  slightest  intimation  of  any  scheme  of  that 
kind ;  when  he  received  this  "  broken  relation  of  a  matter 
so  hicr  edible  in  itself,  gave  very  little  belief  to  it  at  first,  in 
regard  it  came  from  an  obscure  person,  and  one,  as  he  con- 
,ceived,  somewhat  distem2)ered  at  that  time." 

XXIII.  "  His  lordship,"  with  most  wonderful  sagacity, 
"  hearing  this  broken  relation  "  of  a  plot  to  explode  in  about 
twelve  or  thirteen  hours,  for  the  purpose  of  cutting  the 
tliroats  of  all  the  Protestants,  sends  the  informer !  !  between 


APPENDIX.  261 

nine  and  ten  at  night !  !  with  "  order  to  go  again  to  Mac- 
MiJbon,  and  get  out  of  him  as  much  certainty  of  the  plot  as 
he  could  !  !  !  " 

XXIV.  This  informer  who  "  had  been  drinking  somewhat 
liberally  " — and  was  "  somewhat  distempered  at  the  time^"* 
was  a  most  admirable  spy  to  make  further  discoveries,  and 
"  to  get  out  of  Mac-Mahon  as  much  certainty  of  the  plot, 
with  as  many  particular  circumstances  as  he  could  !  ! !  "  His 
fitness  for  this  employment  at  such  a  critical  moment,  was 
further  proved  by  the  circumstance  that  on  his  return  he  was 
so  far  intoxicated,  "  the  effects  of  drink  being  still  %ipon 
him,''''  that  he  could  not  give  in  his  testimony,  till  he  slept 
himself  sober  !  ! !  Therefore,  the  "  conveniency  of  a  bed  " 
being  afibrded  him,  "  on  his  repose,  having  recovered  him- 
self, he  had  his  examination  taken." 

XXY.  After  sending  O'Conally  to  Mac-Mahon's  lodgings, 
with  strict  orders  "  to  return  back  unto  him  the  same  even- 
ing," sir  William  v.^ent  '^privately,  at  about  ten  of  the  clock 
that  night,  to  Lord  Borlase's  house,  without  the  town," 
whereas  O'Conally  was  directed  to  come  to  him  at  his  house 

"  IN    THE    town." 

XXYI.  "  They  sent  for  such  of  the  council  as  they  knew 
then  to  be  in  the  town,"  to  lord  Borlase's  house,  "  without 
THE  town." 

XXVII.  There  they  fell  into  deep  consultation  "what 
was  fit  to  be  done,  attending  the  return  of  O'Conally." 

XXVIII.  They  then  sent  in  search  of  him,  and  found 
that  he  had  been  taken  by  the  watch,  and  rescued  by  the 
servants  of  sir  William  Parsons,  "  who  had  been  sent, 
amongst  others,  to  walk  the  streets,  and  attend  his  motions," 

XXIX.  "  Sensible  that  his  discovery  was  not  thoroughly 
believed,  he  professed  that  whatever  he  had  acquainted  the 
lord  Parsons  with,  was  true ;  and  could  he  but  repose  him- 


262  APPENDIX. 

self,  (the  effects  of  drink  being  still  upon  Jiim,)  he  should  dis- 
cover more." 

XXX.  "  Whereupon  he  had  the  conveniency  of  a  bed.'''' 

XXXI.  "  Having,  (on  his  repose,)  recovered  himself, ^^ 
he  gave  in  his  deposition. 

XXXII.  This  is  dated  the  22d,  and  of  course  must  have 
been  made  before  twelve  o'clock. 

XXXIII.  This  deposition  gave  a  full  detail  of  a  most 
murderous  plot,  whereby  "  cdl  the  Protestants  and  English 
throughout  the  whole  kingdom,  ivere  to  be  cut  off  the  next 
inorning^'' 

XXXIV.  Possessed  of  this  deposition,  which  required 
the  most  decisive  measures  of  precaution,  it  becomes  a  seri- 
ous question,  what  did  the  lords  justices  do  ?  On  this  point 
the  Avhole  merits  of  the  question  might  be  rested :  and  in- 
deed the  investigation  of  any  other  might  be  wholly  omitted. 
The  answer  is,  "  They  took  present  order  to  have  a  watch 
privately  set  upon  the  lodgings  of  Mac-Mahon,  as  also  upon 
the  lord  Macguire  !  !  f"^ 

XXXY.  In  a  plain  simple  case,  in  which  a  school-boy  of 
ten  years  old  could  have  at  once  pointed  out  the  course  to 
be  pursued,  they  spend  no  less  iha^n  five  precio%is  hours,  ^Hn 
consultation,''''  and  in  devising  ways  and  means  for  the  pub- 
lic safety,  notwithstanding  that  the  sword,  not  of  Damocles, 
but  of  Mac-Mahon,  and  his  bloody-minded  associates,  hung 
over  them.  "  They  sat  up  all  that  night  in  consultation," 
"  having  far  stronger  presumptions,*  upon  the  latter  exam- 
ination taken,  than  any  ways  at  first  they  could  entertain." 

XXXVI.  The  result  of  their  long  and  painful  consulta- 
tion, from  twelve  o'clock  at  night  till  five  in  the  morning, 


*  O'Conally  swore  positively  that  there  was  a  conspiracy  "  to  murder  all  the  Pr  )te8- 
tants  that  would  not  join"  with  the  conspirators.  Yet  the  justices  from  thia  une- 
quivocal testimony  only  derived  ^'j;>7'esumptions  "  of  their  danger  I 


APPENDIX.  263 

was,  that  at  tliat  late  hour,  they  at  length  adopted  the  reso- 
lution of  apprehending  Mac-Mahon !!!!!! 

XXXVII.  The  lords  justices  had  received  the  names  of 
some  of  the  principal  conspirators  from  O'Conally,  and, 
among  the  rest,  of  lord  Macguire;  had  '"''privately  set  a 
loatch^  on  Friday  night,"  at  his  lodgings ;  they  must  of 
course  have  known  that  he  was  equally  implicated  with  Mac- 
Mahon,  and  equally  demanded  the  exercise  of  their  vigil- 
ance ;  and  yet  they  did  not  think  of  arresting  him,  until 
after  the  seizure  of  the  latter,  and  "  a  conference  with  him 
and  others,  and  calling  to  mind  a  letter  received  the  week 
hefore  from  sir  William  Cole^"^  they  "  gathered "  that  he 
'•  was  to  be  an  actor  in  surprising  the  castle  of  Dublin  !  " 

XXXVIII.  Ovv^en  O'Conally  swears,  that  "  in  all  parts  of 
the  kingdom,  all  the  English  inhabiting  there,"  are  to  be 
"destroyed  to-morrow  ^morning ^  "  but,  in  the  very  next  sen- 
tence, he  swears,  "  that  all  the  Protestants,  in  all  the  sea- 
ports, and  other  towns  in  the  kingdom,  should  be  killed  this 
nighty  It  is  not  easy  to  conceive,  how,  after  they  were 
"  all  killed'^''  on  Friday  night,  they  could  be  "  all  destroyed  " 
on  Saturday  morning. 

XXXIX.  O'Conally's  deposition  states,  that  the  massacre 
is  to  begin  at  "  ten  o'clock  on  the  23d;  "  to  be  general  "  in 
all  parts  of  the  kingdom  ; "  that  all  the  English  inhabitants 
are  to  be  cut  off;  and  that  "  all  the  posts  that  could  be, 
could  not  prevent  it."  As  this  is  the  cardinal  point  in  the 
affair,  on  which  the  Vvhole  turns,  if  it  can  be  proved  to  be  so 
unequivocally  false  and  groundless,  as  to  be  utterly  destitute 
of  even  the  shadow  of  truth,  then  is  the  entire  story  a  fab- 
rication, and  O'Conally  a  perjurer. 

XL.  That  this  explosion  did  not  take  place ;  and  that,  of 
course,  there  could  not  possibly  have  been  a  general  conspir- 
acy, there  is  superabundant  testimony,  as  will  appear  in  the 
subsequent  paragraphs. 


264  APPENDIX. 

XLI.  1  will  first  premise,  that,  as  the  arrest  of  Mac- 
Mahon  and  Macguire,  in  consequence  of  the  pretended  dis- 
covery of  the  sham  plot,  took  place  on  the  23d  of  October, 
at  five  o'clock  in  the  morning,  just  five  hours  before  the  time 
fixed  for  commencing  the  massacre,  that  circumstance  could 
not  have  prevented  an  explosion  in  any  other  part  of  the 
kingdom,  except  in  a  very  small  portion  of  the  circumjacent; 
country. 

XLII.  Yet  on  Monday,  the  25th  of  October,  the  lords 
justices  wrote  an  elaborate  and  detailed  account  of  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  insurgents  in  the  north  of  Ireland,  with  i 
prolix  statement  of  various  outrages,  not  only  without  the 
least  hint  or  surmise,  but  even  with  an  utter  exclusion  of 
every  idea,  of  murder  or  shedding  of  blood. 

XLIII.  And  further,  I  invoke  the  most  earnest  attention 
of  the  reader  to  this  all -important  fact — Notwithstanding 
the  pretended  generality  of  the  plot,  the  lords  justices,  by 
public  proclamation,  on  the  29th  of  October,  declared  that 
the  insurrection  was  confined  to  "  the  mere  old  Irish  of  the 
province  of  Ulster,  and  others  who  adhered  to  them." 

XLIY.  These  two  strong  facts  prove  that  such  parts  of 
O'Conally's  deposition  as  relate  to  the  general  extent  of  the 
conspiracy,  and  the  plot  to  "cut  off  all  the  Protestants 
throughout  the  kingdom,"  are  wholly  false,  and  that  he  of 
course  was  an  abandoned  perjurer;  and  would  decide  the 
question  on  these  vital  points,  beyond  appeal  or  controversy. 
But  much  stronger  evidence  remains  behind,  derived  from 
Temple,  Borlase,  Carte,  Leland,  and  Warner,  to  which  I 
now  invite  the  attention  of  the  reader. 

XLY,  Munster  continued  tranquil  for  six  weeks,  although, 
according  to  the  testimony  of  Warner,  it  contained  but  one 
troop  of  horse  :  *  and  of  course,  when  defended  by  such  an 

*  "  In  the  province  of  Munster,  of  which  sir  William  St.  Leger  was  lord  president, 
the  EngUsh  were  very  numerous,  and  ready  to  assemble  in  a  body  to  preserve  the 


APPENDIX.  265 

insignificant  force,  had  there  been  any  reality  in  the  plot,  the 
Irish  could  and  would  have  totally  overwhelmed  their  op- 
pressors. * 

XLYI.  Connaught  was  in  the  same  state  for  six  weeks, 
principally  owing  to  the  influence  of  lord  Clanrickarde,  a 
Roman  Catholic,  f 

peace  and  safety  of  the  country.  But  they  were  utterly  destitute  of  arms ;  and  all  the 
solicitations  made  by  sir  William,  which  were  strong  and  numerous,  could  not  per- 
suade the  lords  justices  and  coimcil  to  spare  him  any.  He  was  a  brave  old  soldier,  of 
great  experience  and  activity ;  and  did  everything  that  it  was  possible  for  a  man  to 
do  with  one  troop  of  horse,  which  was  all  Ma  gxiard  for  the  whole  province ;  a 
guard  scarcely  sufficient  to  repress  the  insolence  of  robbers,  in  a  time  of  profound 
peace,  much  less  in  a  time  of  such  general  spoil  and  distm-bance.  But,  with  the 
assistance  of  the  noblemen  and  gentry  of  the  province,  it  continued  quiet  for  above 
six  weeks  !  !  !  Indeed,  no  man  of  quality,  or  gentleman  of  EngUsh  blood,  either  Pa- 
pist or  Protestant,  had  as  yet  joined  the  rebels." — Warner,  130. 

*  There  is  a  discrepancy  between  Temple  and  Borlase  as  to  the  time  when  the  insur- 
rection commenced  in  Muuster :  the  former  stating  it  "the  beginning,"  and  the  latter 
'•  the  midst,"  of  December.  This  does  not,  however,  afreet  the  disproof  of  O'ConaUy's 
deposition,  which,  in  either  case,  is  notoriously  false. 

"  The  flame  having  marched  through  Ulster  and  Leinster,  it  discovers  its  furj% 
about  the  beginning  of  December,  1641,  in  Munster,  which  province  till  that  time, 
(by  the  moderation  of  the  state, )  had  stifled  its  rage,  then  expressing  its  consent  with 
the  other  provinces." — Borlase,  49. 

"The  whole  province  of  Munster,  about  the  midst  of  this  month  of  December, 
BEGAN  to  declare  themselves  in  open  rebellion." — Temjile,  155. 

"In  Munster,  sir  William  St.  Leger,  the  lord  president,  a  soldier  of  activity  and 
experience,  and  possessed  even  with  an  inveteracy  against  the  Irish,  could  not  obtain 
arms  or  soldiers  sufficient  for  a  time  of  peace,  much  less  for  a  juncture  of  distrac- 
tion and  disorder.  Yet  the  strength  of  the  EngUsh  Protestants,  and  the  loyalty  of 
the  Irish  gentry,  as  yet  preserved  this  province  from  any  material  disorder  y — Lel- 
and,  iii.,  158. 

t  "  The  lord  Ranelagh  was  president  of  Connaught :  and  aU  that  province,  except  a 
few  pillagers  in  the  coimty  of  SUgo,  had,  owing  in  a  great  measure  to  the  forward 
zeal  and  activity  of  lord  Clanrickarde,  though  a  Roman  Catholic,  tiU  this  time,  con- 
tinued quiet." —  Wariier,  157, 

"  The  infection  of  the  Pale  having  spread  in  the  remoter  parts,  about  the  middle 
if  December,  the  whole  province  of  Connaught  in  a  manner  revolted,  the  county  of 
Galway,  of  which  lord  Clanrickarde  was  governor,  excepted." — Ibid.,  158. 

"The  peace  and  security  of  Connaught  were  equally  neglected  by  the  chief  gov- 
ernors, although  the  English  power  was  inconsiaerable  in  this  iJrovince,  and  the 
Irish  natives  kept  in  continual  alarm  for  twenty-five  years  by  the  prospect  of  a  general 
plantation,  which,  tfaougn  suspended,  had  not  been  formaU^^  relinquished.  Yet  here., 
too,  the  good  affections  of  the  principal  i7ihabitants  stemmed  the  torrent  of  rebeU 
lion.'''' — Lelandf  158. 


266  APPENDIX, 

XLYII.  Leinster  was  likewise  tranquil,  except  some  out- 
rages of  small  importance,  until  the  beginning  of  December; 
as  the  summons  to  the  lords  of  the  Pale  to  come  to  Dublin, 
to  consult  on  the  aflfairs  of  state,  was  dated  the  3d  of  that 
month,  at  which  time  there  was  no  appearance  of  serious 
disturbance ;  and  the  butchery  at  Santry,  by  the  sanguinary 
and  merciless  ruffian,  sir  Charles  Coote,*  which  was  obvi- 
ously kitended  to  provoke,  and  actually  led  to,  the  insurrec- 
tion in  that  province,  took  place  on  the  7th. 

XL VIII.  And  further,  we  have  the  testimony  of  Warner 
and  Carte,  f  that  the  insurrection  was  for  about  six  weeks 
confined  almost  wholly  to  the  province  of  Ulster. 

XLIX.  That  the  original  views  of  the  insurgents  did  not 
comprehend  a  general  massacre,  or  even  single  murders,  we 
have  further  testimony,  clear  and  decisive,  derived  even  from 
Temple,  as  well  as  Warner,  and  Leland,  which,  independent 
of  all  other  proof,  would  be  suffi.cient  to  settle  this  question 
forever,  and  utterly  overwhelm  O'Conally's  perjured  legend. J 

L.  Moreover,  if  there  had  been  a  plot  for  a  general  insur- 


*  "The  town  being  left  at  his  [sir  Charles  Coote's]  mercy,  to  which  he  appears  to 
be  a  stranger,  he  put  to  death  several  persons,  wUhotit  distinction  of  age  or  sex!  !  I 
in  revenge  of  the  several  spoils  committed  on  the  English  in  those  parts." — War- 
ner, 165. 

"  In  revenge  of  their  depredations,  he  [sir  Charles  Coote]  committed  such  tmpro- 
voked,  such  tmthless,  and  indiscriminate  carnage  in  the  town,  as  rivalled  the  utmost 
extravagancies  of  the  Northerns.'' — Leland,  iii.,  169. 

t  "Had  the  lords  justices  and  coimcil  acquitted  themselves  like  men  of  probity  and 
understanding,  there  was  time  enough  given  them  to  suppress  an  insurrection  which 
for  six  weeks  icas  confined  almost  to  the  province  of  Ulster,  without  any  chief  that 
was  so  considerable  as  sir  Phelim  0"Neal." —  Warner,  130. 

"iVo  one  nohleman  of  the  kingdom,  nor  any  estated  gentleman  of  English  race, 
engaged  in  the  rebellion,  or  joined  with  the  rebels  in  action,  till  the  month  of  Decem- 
ber ;  for  as  to  those  gentlemen  of  the  county  of  Louth,  who  submitted  to  them  before, 
being  unable  to  defend  themselves  or  to  make  resistance,  they  had  not  yet  appeared 
in  action.  The  rebellio7i  till  then  had  been  carried  on  bij  the  mere  Irish,  and  CON- 
FINED TO  ULSTER,  to  some  few  comities  in  Leinster,  atid  that  of  Leitrim  in 
Coiinaught.'''' — Carte,  i.,  243. 

i  '  It  was  resolved"  by  the  insurgents  '■'■not  to  kill  any,  but  where  of  necessity 
they  should  be  forced  thereunto  by  opposition." — Temple,  65. 


APPENDIX.  267 

rectioTi,  and  siicli  a  massacre  as  O'Conally  swore  to,  there 
would  have  been  evidence  produced  from  some  of  the  conspir- 
ators :  but  notwithstanding  the  lords  justices  had  recourse 
to  tht,  execrable  aid  of  the  rack,  and  put  Mac-Mahon  and 
otherji  to  the  torture,  there  is  not,  in  the  examinations  of 
the  former,  a  single  word  to  corroborate  the  sanguinary  part 
of  O'Conally's  deposition.  The  examinations  of  the  rest 
were  never  published. 

LI.  There  is  not  to  be  found  in  Temple,  Borlase,  Carte, 
Warner,  Leland,  Clarendon,  nor,  as  far  as  I  have  seen,  in 
Bushworth,  the  examination  of  a  single  person  engaged  in 
a  conspiracy  which  was  said  to  have  extended  throughout 
the  whole  kingdom,  except  those  of  Mac-Mahon  and  lord 
Macguire  ! ! ! !  That  of  the  latter  was  not  taken  till  March, 
1642. 


Perhaps  the  preceding  analysis  of  this  miserable  legend 
might  supersede  the  necessity  of  adding  anything  further  on 
the  subject.  But  its  great  importance,  and  a  deep  solicitude' 
to  dispel  the  thick  mists  with  which  prejudice  and  fraud  have 
overspread  it,  induce  me  to  place  it  in  a  new  form,  and  bring 
it  more  home  to  the  mind  of  the  reader.  The  reasons  for 
adopting  this  measure,  which  might  otherwise  appear  a  work 
of  supererogation,  will  probably  so  far  satisfy  the  reader,  as 
to  preclude  the  necessity  of  an  apology. 

Queries. 

Is  there  a  man  in  the  world  who  can  seriously  believe  : 

I.  That  a  Gatliolic  colonel,  engaged  in  a  plot  to  murder 
the  Protestants^  would  send  forty-five  miles  for  a  Protestant, 
SERVANT  to  a  Protestant  gentleman,  an  inveterate  enemy  to 
the  Roman  Catholics,  as  an  accomplice  ? 

II.  That  a  journey  of  a  hundred  and  ten  miles  could  be 
performed  in  three  days  and  a  half,  the  sun  rising  about 


268  APPENDIX. 

seven,  and  setting  about  Jive,  at  a  season  of  the  year  ^\fhen 
the  rains,  then  usually  prevalent,  must  have  rendered  tho 
roads  almost  impassable ;  and  by  a  man  who  knew  nothing 
of  the  business  which  led  to  the  summons  he  had  received, 
and  who,  of  course,  had  no  temptation  to  make  any  extra- 
ordinary exertion? 

III.  That  a  stranger,  arriving  in  the  suburbs  of  a  city  an 
Iwiir  after  sunset,  and  fatigued  with  a  long  journey,  should, 
ivithout  any  aid  from  the  moon,  immediately  commence  a 
search  for  and  actually  find  out  the  lodgings,  of  another 
stranger,  who  had  arrived  a  few  hours  before  ? 

TV.  That  sir  William  Parsons,  who  had,  at  nine  in  the 
evening,  received  intelligence  of  a  plot,  to  explode  at  ten  the 
next  morning,  and  the  names  of  some  of  the  principal  con- 
spirators, should  be  so  misguided,  as  to  send  back  the 
drunken  informer,  "  to  get  out  of  Mac-Mahon  as  much  cer- 
tainty of  the  plot  as  he  could,"  instead  of  immediately  ap- 
prehending the  conspirators  ? 

V.  That  being  "  in  toivn^'''  he  would  have  gone  "  without 
the  town''"'  and  sent  there  for  such  of  the  council  as  lived  "  in 
town,''''  when  such  an  awful  explosion  was  likely  to  take 
place  ? 

YI.  That  when  the  informer  returned  to  the  lords  justices, 
he  would  be  allowed  to  go  to  bed,  before  taking  his  examin- 
ations ? 

YIL  That  the  lords  justices  would  have  remained  all 
night,  and  until  five  o'clock  in  the  morning,  at  lord  Borlase's 
house,  without  the  town,  and  closed  the  gates,  thus  shutting 
themselves  out  from  the  defence  of  the  castle  ? 

YIII.  That  when  O'Conally  had  slept  himself  sober,  and 
made  circumstantial  deposition  of  such  alarming  particulars, 
the  council  would  have  been  such  idiots  as  to  take  no  other 
precaution  than  merely  ''  to  have  a  watch  set  privately  upon 
the  lodgings  of  Mac-Mahon,  and  also  upon  lord  Macguire," 


APPENDIX.  209 

as  if  they  liad  been  plotting  to  rob  orchards  or  hen-roosts,  to 
bar  out  a  schoolmaster,  break  lamps  in  a  midnight  frolic,  or 
attack  the  watchmen,  instead  of  plotting  to  seize  the  castle, 
subvert  the  government,  and  cut  the  throats  of  one  or  two 
hundred  thousand  people  ? 

IX.  That  the  privy  covincil  would  not,  under  such  circum- 
stances, have  instantly  apprehended  the  conspirators,  instead 
of  "  sitting  all  night  in  council,"  upon  one  of  the  simplest 
points  ever  discussed,  and  which  could  have  been  decided  in 
five  minutes,  as  well  as  in  five  hours,  five  weeks,  or  five  years ; 
on  which  the  most  prompt  and  decisive  measures  were  im- 
periously necessary ;  and  at  a  moment  when,  if  there  were 
any  truth  in  the  statement  of  O'Conally,  the  salvation  or  de- 
struction of  the  state  might  depend  on  a  single  hour  ? 

X.  That  having  taken  the  precaution,  on  Friday  night,  of 
"  setting  a  watch  privately  upon  the  lodgings  of  lord  Mac- 
guire,"  thereby  establishing  their  belief  that  he  was  an  ac- 
complice in  the  plot,  they  would  not  have  arrested  him  at 
the  same  time  they  arrested  Mac-Mahon,  but  v\^aited  "  till 
conference  with  the  latter  and  others,  and  calling  to  mind  sir 
William  Cole's  letter,"  which  led  them  to  "  gather  that  the 
lord  Macguire  was  to  be  an  actor  in  surprising  the  castle  of 
Dublin  ?  " 

XI.  That  a  conspiracy,  which  was  to  explode  throughout 
the  whole  kingdom  on  the  23d  of  October,  should  be  arrested 
in  Leinster,  Connaught,  and  Munster,  by  the  detection  of  it, 
in  Dublin,  a  few  hours  before  the  aj)pointed  time  ? 

XII.  That  if  it  had  been  intended  to  murder  "  all  the 
Protestants  throughout  the  kingdom,''''  who  "  would  not  join 
the  conspirators,"  there  would  have  been  no  intelligence  of 
a  single  murder  on  the  25th,  or  that,  on  the  29th,  the  lords 
justices  should  explicitly  declare,  that  the  insurrection  vras 
"  confined  to  the  mere  old  Irish  in  the  province  of  Ulster, 
and  others  who  had  joined  them  ?  " 


270  APPENDIX. 

XIII.  That  though  the  lords  justices  had  recourse  to  the 
execrable  expedient  of  putting  Mac-Mahon  and  others  to  the 
rack,  they  should  not  have  extorted  a  word  from  any  of 
them,  to  support  the  charge  of  murderous  intentions,  if  any 
conspiracy  had  existed,  for  "  cutting  off  all  the  Protestants 
and  English  throughout  the  kingdom  ?  " 

XIV.  That  no  examinations  should  have  ever  been  taken 
of  any  other  of  the  conspirators  ? 

XV.  That  if  there  were  a  general  conspiracy,  and  of 
course  a  large  assemblage  of  people  in  Dublin,  for  the  '^uv- 
pose  of  seizing  the  castle  on  the  23d,  the  lords  justices  would 
not  have  been  able,  on  the  morning  of  that  day,  to  appre- 
hend more  than  two  of  the  leaders  and  a  few  common  ser- 
vants ? 

XVI.  That  to  execute  an  enterjDrise  of  which  the  success 
absolutely  depended  on  promptitude  and  secresy,  people 
would  be  collected  from  all  the  thirty-two  counties  of  Ireland, 
at  various  distances,  ten,  twenty,  thirty,  fifty,  one  hundred, 
and  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  from  the  scene  of  opera- 
tions ? 

XVII.  And  finally,  whether,  the  deposition  of  O'Conally 
being  incontrovertibly  established  as  false,  and  he  of  course 
perjured,  in  the  two  vital  points, — 

I.  The  universality  of  the  plot,  and 

II.  The  determination  to  massacre  all  who  would  not  join 
in  it, 

— there  can  be  any  credit  whatever  attached  to  the  remain- 
der of  his  testimony  ?  And  whether  it  does  not  necessarily 
follow,  that  the  whole  was  a  manifest  fraud  and  imposture, 
designed  to  provoke  insurrection,  and  lead  to  its  usual  and 
inevitable  result, — confiscation  ? 


Before  the  reader  decides  on  answers  to  these  queries,  it 
is  hoped  he  will  bear  in  mind  the  strong  facts  adduced  in 


APPENDIX.  271 

Chapter  XX.  to  prove  that  the  seventeenth  century  vv^as,  in 
the  fullest  sense  of  the  word,  the  age  of  perjury,  forgery,  and 
fabricated  plots.  He  will  there  see,  that  in  London,  the 
boasted  courts  of  justice  were  at  that  period  mere  slaugh- 
ter-houses, where  the  depositions  of  men,  stained  and 
covered  over  with  crimes  of  the  most  atrocious  nature,  as 
the  leopard  is  covered  v/ith  spots,  were  received  without 
hesitation  in  cases  where  the  lives  of  innocent  men  were  at 
stake,  and  were  finally  immolated.  He  will  likewise  behold 
the  horrible  fact,  that  the  testimony  of  a  man  whose  perj%iry 
was  detected  in  open  court^  and  there  confessed  hy  himself^ 
was  afterwards  admitted,  and  was  the  means  of  consis^ninsc 
innocent  persons  to  the  ignominious  death  of  the  gallows. 

Let  him  also  bear  in  mind,  tliat  forged  j^lots,  supported 
by  perjury,  had  been  one  of  the  regular  and  uniform 
machines  of  the  government  of  Ireland,  from  the  invasion 
to  that  period;  and  steadily  from  the  Kestoration  in  16G0, 
till  the  Revolution  in  1688  ;  and  had  produced  the  forfeiture 
of  millions  of  acres. 

And  further,  let  it  not  be  forgotten,  that  all  the  writers. 
Clarendon,  Carte,  Warner,  Leland,  Gordon,  etc.,  agree,  that 
the  grand  object  of  the  lords  justices  was,  in  the  beginning, 
to  extend  the  flames  of  civil  war ;  and,  when  the  insurrec- 
tion had  by  these  means  become  genei-al,  to  prevent  a  cessa- 
tion of  hostilities,  for  the  purpose  of  producing  extensive 
confiscations. 

With  all  these  strong  facts  taken  into  view,  I  then  invite 
a  decision ;  and  entertain  no  doubt  of  a  favorable  verdict. 

On  this  subject  I  have  no  hesitation  in  pledging  myself, 
that  if  any  independent  and  upright  judge  or  lavvyer  of  any 
court  in  France,  Germany,  England,  Scotland,  Ireland,  or 
the  United  States,  will  pronounce  affirmative  answers  to  the 
above  queries,  so  as  to  imply  a  belief  in  the  reality  of  the 
conspiracy,  as  deposed  to  by  the  "  Protestant  gentleman," 


eT2  APPENDIX. 

alias  "  servant,^''  I  will  cheerfully  suppress  this  work,  and 
consent  to  have  it  burned  by  the  hands  of  the  common 
hangman. 

[In  the  28th  chapter  of  his  "  Vindicm  Hibemicce''''  (2d  edition, 
1823),  Mr.  Carey  proceeds,  in  the  annexed  manner,  to  dispose  of 
the  question,  whether  there  was  any  massacre  of  Protestants  in 
1641.] 

TFas  there  really  a  3fassacre  of  the  Protestants  in  1641  ? 

TInparalleled  Exaggeration.  More  Protestants  pretended 
to  he  killed  than  there  were  on  the  Island.  Conclusive 
Evidence  drawn  from  Sir  William  Petty.      Carte's  and 

Warner'' s  Refutation  of  tlie  Legend. 

"  Falsehood  and  fraud  grow  up  in  every  soil, 
The  product  of  all  climes." — Addison. 

Although  I  have  already  in  the  first  chapter  incidentally 
touched  on  the  numbers  said  to  be  massacred  by  the  Irish 
in  the  insurrection  of  1G41,  I  think  it  proper  to  resume  the 
subject,  and  go  into  it  somewhat  more  at  length,  as  it  is  a 
cardinal  point  in  the  vindication  I  have  undertaken. 

In  order  to  proceed  correctly  in  the  investigation,  I  shall 
let  the  accusers  narrate  their  own  tales,  in  order  to  ascer- 
tain what  is  the  sum  and  substance  of  the  allegations  : — 

'^  The  depopulations  in  this  province  of  3Iunster  do  well 
near  equal  those  of  tlie  whole  kingdom  !!  !  " — Temple,  103. 

''  There  being,  since  the  rebellion  fii'st  broke  out,  imto 
the  time  of  the  cessation  made  Sept.  15,  1G43,  which  was 
not  full  two  years  after,  above  300,000  Pritish  and  Protes- 
tants cruelly  murder edj  in  cold  hlood,  destroyed  some  other 
way,  or  expelled  out  of  their  habitations,  according  to  the 
strictest  conjecture  and  computation  of  those  who  seemed 
best  to  undei-stand  the  numbers  of  English  planted  in  Ire- 
land, besides  those  few  vjhich  fell  in  tlie  heat  of  fight  during 
the  war.''"' — Ibid.,  6. 

"  Above  154,000  Protestants  were  massacred  in  that 
kingdom  from  the  23d  October  to  the  1st  March  following." 
— Papin,  ix.,  343. 


APPENDIX.  273 

"  By  some  computations,  those  who  perished  by  all  these 
cruelties  are  supposed  to  be  150,000  or  200,000.  Bj  the 
most  moderate,  and  probably  the  most  reasonable  account, 
they  are  made  to  amount  to  forty  thousand !  if  this  extenu- 
ation itself  be  not,  as  is  usual  in  such  cases,  somewhat  ex- 
aggerated! ''' — H-iune,  iii.,  545. 

"  A  general  insurrection  of  the  Irish  spread  itself  over  the 
whole  country,  in  such  an  inhuman  and  barbarous  manner, 
that  there  were  forty  or  fifty  thousand  of  the  English  Protes- 
tants 7)iurderedj  before  they  suspected  themselves  to  he  in  any 
danger^  or  could  provide  for  their  defence,  by  drawing 
together  into  towns  or  strong  houses." — Clarendon^  E.,  II. 

That  "  Saul  slew  his  thousands,  and  David  his  tens  of  thou- 
sands," was,  in  "  olden  time,"  sung  by  the  women  of  Israel. 
Every  Pliilistine  was  magnified  into  ten ;  every  ten  into  a 
hundred ;  and  every  hundred  into  a  thousand.  But  the 
amplifying  powers  of  the  Jewish  women  fade  into  insignifi- 
cance, when  compared  with  those  of  the  Anglo-Hibernian 
writers.  Every  Englishman  that  fell  in  battle,  or  otherwise, 
was  murdered.  Every  man  was  magnified  into  a  hundred  ; 
every  ten  into  a  thousand;  and  every  hundred  into  ten 
thousand. 

Such  a  spirit  of  exaggeration  has  prevailed,  in  a,  greater  or 
less  degree,  in  all  ages.  Even  in  common  occurrences, 
hardly  calculated  to  excite  any  interest,  we  find,  every  day 
of  our  lives,  that  the  statements  of  current  events  are  so 
highly  colored,  as  to  difier  full  as  much  from  the  reality,  as 
the  countenance  of  a  meretricious  courtesan,  who  has  ex- 
hausted her  stores  of  carmine  and  white  lead,  difiers  from 
the  undisguised  countenance  of  an  innocent  country  damsel, 
who  depends  wholly  on  the  pure  ornaments  of  beneficent 
Nature.  This  being  undeniably  the  case,  on  topics  v>^here 
no  temptation  to  deception  exists,  how  dreadful  must  be  the 
falsehood  and  delusion  in  the  present  case,  where  ambition, 
avarice,  malice,  bigotry,  national  hatred,  and  all  the  other 


2Y4  APPENDIX. 

dire  passions  that  assimilate  men  to  demons,  were  goaded 
into  activity  ! 

In  all  other  cases,  but  that  of  the  history  of  Ireland,  to 
convict  a  witness  of  gross,  palpable,  and  notorious  falsehood, 
would  be  sufficient  to  invalidate  the  whole  of  his  evidence ; 
but  such  has  been  the  wayward  fate  of  that  country,  that 
the  most  gross  and  manifest  forgeries,  which  carry  their 
own  condemnation  with  them,  are  received  by  the  world  as 
though  they  were 

"  Confirmation  strong  as  proofs  of  Holy  Writ." 

Or,  when  some  are  found  too  monstrous  to  be  admitted, 
their  falsehood  and  absurdity  do  not  impair  the  public 
credulity  in  the  rest  of  the  tales  depending  on  the  same 
authority. 

The  materials  for  Irish  statistics,  at  that  early  period,  are 
rare  j  a  deficiency  which  involves  this  subject  in  considerable 
difficulty.  V7ere  correct  tables  of  the  population  of  Ireland 
to  be  had,  the  task  would  be  comparatively  easy  ;  and  I 
could  put  down  all  those  tales,  with  as  much  ease  as  I  have 
stamped  the  seal  of  flagrant  falsehood  on  tlie  many  impost- 
ures already  investigated. 

But  I  avail  myself  of  a  sound  rule, — to  employ  the  best 
evidence  that  the  nature  and  circumstances  of  the  case  will 
admit;  and  there  are  fortunately,  some  important  data,  on 
which  to  reason,  in  the  present  instance,  and  to  shed  the 
light  of  truth  on  this  intrica»fce  question,  and  dispel  the 
dense  clouds  with  which  it  has  been  environed  by  fi'aud  and 
imposture. 

Sir  William  Petty,  the  ancestor  of  the  Lansdowne  family, 
laid  the  foundation  of  a  princely  fortune  in  the  depredations 
perpetrated  on  the  Irish,  after  the  insurrection  of  1641.  Of 
course,  he  had  no  temptation  to  swerve  from  the  truth  in 
their  favor;  on  the    contrary,  it  was  his  interest,  equall}? 


APPENDIX. 


IJYO 


witli  the  otlier  possessors  of  the  estates  of  the  plundered 
Irish,  to  exaggerate  their  real  crimes,  and  to  lend  the  coun- 
tenance of  his  reputation  to  their  pretended  ones.  Hence, 
his  testimony,  on  this  ground,  and  as  a  cotemporary,  cannot, 
so  far  as  it  tends  to  exonerate  those  upon  whose  ruin  he  raised 
his  immense  estate,  be  excepted  against  by  the  enemies  of 
the  Irish.  I  shall  therefore  freely  cite  him  in  the  case  :  and 
the  reader  will  at  once  perceive  to  what  an  extent  delusion 
has  been  carried  on  this  subject. 

He  states  the  aggregate  number  of  the  Protestants  who 
perished  in  eleven  years,  to  have  been  1 12,000 ;  of  wliom 
"  two-thirds  were  cut  off  by  war,  plague,  and  famine."  It 
is  obvious  to  the  meanest  capacity, — if,  of  112,000,  the  whole 
number  that  fell  in  that  space  of  time,  two-thirds  were  cut 
off  "  by  war,  plague,  and  famine," — that  those  who  fell,  out 
of  war,  in  eleven  years,  were  only  37,000  !  I  hope  to  prove, 
that  even  this  statement,  so  comparatively  moderate,  is  ex- 
travagantly beyond  the  truth. 

Sir  William  Petty  confutes  himself,  beyond  the  jiower  of 
redemption. 

"  Mark  how  a  plain  tale  shall  put  him  down." 

He  bequeathed  to  posterity  some  statistical  tables,  which 
throw  considerable  light  on  this  subject.  They  are  very 
meagre,  it  is  true ;  but,  meagre  as  they  are,  I  believe  there 
are  no  others ;  at  all  events,  I  know  of  none :  and  must 
therefore  avail  myself  of  them. 

He  informs  us,  that  the  population  of  Ireland,  in  1641, 
was,  1,466,000  ;  *  and  that  the  relative  proportion  of  the 
Protestants  to  the  Catholics  Avas  as  tv/o  to  eleven :  f  of 
course,  it  follows,  that  the  population  was  thus  divided  : — 

*  "This  shows  there  were,  in  1G41,  1,406,000  people.  "—PeJily- 
t  For  the  present  I  admit  this  proportion  ;  as,  however  exaggerated  the  number  of 
the  Protestants  may  be,  it  does  not  affect  the  point  at  issue.    But,  from  various  cLr- 
t;umsa.nces.  it  is  doubtful  whether  there  was  one  Protestant  to  eleven  Eoman  Cath- 
olics. 


276  APPENDIX: 

about  1,241,000  Eoman  Catholics,  a,nd  225,000  Protestants. 
Erom  this  conclusion  there  is  no  appeal. 

The  supplies  of  people  from  England  and  Scotland,  until 
after  the  final  defeat,  capture,  condemnation,  and  death  of 
Charles  I.,  were  inconsiderable  :*  and  surely  it  is  impossible 
for  a  rational  being  to  believe,  that  out  of  225,000,  there 
could  have  been  112,000  destroyed,  and  the  residue  have 
been  able  to  baffle  and  defeat  the  insurgents,  who  comprised 
the  great  mass  of  the  nation.  It  will  therefore,  I  trust,  be 
allowed,  as  an  irresistible  conclusion,  that  Sir  William  Petty's 
calculation,  although,  so  far,  more  moderate  than  any  of  the 
"  tales  of  terror  "  quoted  at  the  commencement  of  this  chap- 
ter, is  most  extravagantly  overrated,  probably  trebled  or 
quadrupled ;  and  must,  of  absolute  necessity,  be  false. 

But  even  admitting  it  to  be  correct,  what  an  immense  dif- 
ference between  37,000  in  eleven  years — and  the  numbers 
so  confidently  stated  by  the  various  writers  of  Irish  history ! 
What  astonishment  must  be  excited  by  Burton's  300,000, 
in  a  few  months ;  Temple's  300,000,  in  less  than  two  years ; 
May's  200,000,  in  one  month ;  AYarwick's  100,000,  in  one 
week ;  or  Rapin's  40,000,  in  a  few  days !  Surely  there  is 
not,  in  the  history  of  the  world,  any  parallel  case  of  such 
gross,  palpable,  shocking,  and  abominable  deception.  Can 
language  be  found  strong  or  bold  enough  to  mark  the  dis- 
honor of  those  who  knowingly  propagated  such  falsehoods, 
or  the  folly  or  neglect  of  those  who  adopted  and  gave  them 
currency  ?  Their  names  ought  to  be  held  up,  as  "  a  hissing 
and  reproach,"  to  deter  others  from  following  in  their  foul 
and  loathsome  track  of  calumny  and  deception. 

On  the  subject  of  the  number  of  victims  of  the  pretended 
massacre,  the  observations  of  Carte  are  so  j  udicious  and  un- 
answerable, that  they  would  be   sufficient,  independent  of 

*  More  Protestants,  it  is  highly  probable,  removed  from  Ireland  during  the  progress 
jf  the  war,  than  the  number  of  soldiers  who  were  sent  thither  from  England. 


APPENDIX.  277 

the  (jther  evidence  I  have  produced,  to  put  down  forever 
those  miserable  legends  about  so  many  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  the  Protestants  cut  off  in  a  few  weeks,  or  months  or 
years,  and  to  stamp  on  the  foreheads  of  their  authors  the 
broad  seal  of  imposture.  He  states  that  the  extravagant 
numbers,  asserted  to  be  massacred,  were  "more  than  there 
were  of  English,  at  that  time,  in  all  Ireland.'''' 

"It  is  certain,  that  the  great  body  of  the  English  was 
settled  in  Munster  and  Leinster,  where  very  few  murders 
were  committed  /  and  that  in  Ulster,  which  was  the  dismal 
scene  of  the  inassacre,  there  were  above  100,000  Scots,  who, 
before  the  general  plantation  of  it,  had  settled  in  gi*eat  num- 
bers in  the  counties  of  Down  and  Antrim  :  and  new  shoals 
of  them  had  come  over,  upon  the  plantation  of  the  six  es- 
cheated counties  :  and  they  were  so  very  powerful  therein, 
that  the  Irish,  either  out  of  fear  of  their  numbers,  or  some 
other  politic  reason,  spared  those  of  that  nation,  making 
proclamation,  on  2ycdn  of  death,  that  no  Scotsman  should  he 
Wjolested  in  body,  goods  or  lands,  whilst  they  raged  with  so 
much  cruelty  against  the  English." — Carte,  I.,  177. 

To  these  facts,  he  adds  the  following  reflections : 

"  It  cannot  therefore  reasonably  be  presumed,  that  there 
were  at  most  above  20,000  English  souls,  of  all  ages  and 
sexes,  in  Ulster  at  that  time ;  and  of  these,  as  appears  by 
the  lords  justices'  letter,  there  were  several  thousands  got 
safe  to  Dublin,  and  icei^e  subsisted  there  for  many  months 
afterwards y  besides  6,000  women  and  children,  which  Cap- 
tain Mervyn  saved  in  Fei-managh ;  and  others  that  got  safe 
to  Derry,  Coleraine,  and  Carrickfergus,  and  went  from  these 
and  other  ports  into  England." 

It  is  impossible  to  reconcile  the  latter  part  of  these  quota- 
tions with  the  rest ;  a  case,  as  we  have  repeatedly  stated, 
that  incessantly  occurs  in  Irish  histories.  The  author  in- 
forms us,  on  rational  grounds,  that  there  were  "  not  more 
than  20,000  English  in  Ulster ^  "  that  "  several  thousands 
got  safe  to  Dublin j  "  that  "  G,000  women  and  children  were 


278  APPENDIX, 

saved  in  Fermanagli ;  "  and  that  "  others  got  safe  to  Deny, 
Coleraine,  and  Carrickfergus."  These  all-important  and  con- 
clusive facts  he  connects  with  a  statement  of  "  the  extreme 
cruelty  with  which  the  insurgents  raged  against  the  Eng 
lish,"  and  with  a  notice  of  the  "  dismal  scene  of  the  massa 
ere,''''  the  subjects  of  which  massacre  are  not  very  easiljf 
found,  and,  at  all  events,  could  not  have  been  very  numer- 
ous :  for,  let  us  add  together  "  several  thousands,"  and 
*' 6,000,"  and  the  "others"  who  "got  safe"  into  the  speci- 
fied towns,  where  there  were  numerous  garrisons  ;  where,  of 
course,  in  a  time  of  violence  and  commotion,  the  inhabitants 
of  the  circumjacent  country  would  naturally  seek  refuge  ; 
and  where,  it  is  not  extravagant  to  suppose,  that  "  the 
others,"  who  thus  "got  safe,"  might  have  amounted  to 
some  thousands :  let  us  then  deduct  the  aggregate  from 
20,000,  the  total  number  of  English,  and  we  shall  find  a 
slender  remainder.  But  the  plain  fact  is,  that  the  writers 
on  this  subject  are  so  haunted  by  the  idea  of  a  massacre, 
that  although  it  rests  on  the  sandy  foundation  of  forgery 
and  perjury,  as  shall  be  fully  proved  in  the  sequel,  and  al- 
though many  of  their  own  statements,  in  the  most  unequiv- 
ocal manner,  give  it  the  lie  direct,  their  minds  cannot  be 
divested  of  the  terrific  object.  These  passages  from  Carte 
furnish  a  strong  case  in  point.  The  most  ardent  friend  of 
Ireland  could  not  desire  a  much  more  complete  proof  of  the 
fallacy  of  the  accounts  of  the  pretended  massacre  than  is 
here  given  by  this  author  himself,  who,  nevertheless,  won- 
derful to  tell !  appears  to  resist  the  evidence  of  his  own 
facts,  and  to  be  blind  to  the  obvious  inference  to  which  they 
inevitably  lead. 

Ferdinando  Warner,  a  clergyman  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, appears  to  have  been  the  only  writer  who  has  gone  into 
any  elaborate  investigation  of  the  legendary  tales  of  the  pre- 
tended massacre ;  and  his  views  of  the  subject  will  deserve 


APPENDIX.  279 

tlie  most  serious  attention  of  the  reader.  After  stating  the 
uncertainty  of  the  accounts,  and  tlie  consequent  difficulty  of 
making  an  exact  estimate,  he  pronounces  a  strong  and  une- 
quivocal sentence  of  condemnation  on  the  Munchausen  tales 
"we  are  combating;  and  avers,  that 

"  It  is  easy  enough  to  demonstrate  the  falsehood  of  the  re- 
lation of  every  Protestant  historian  of  this  rebellion.'''' 

He  proceeds  to  render  a  satisfactory  account  of  the  grounds 
on  which  this  statement  rests  : 

*'  To  any  one  who  considers  how  thinly  Ireland  was,  at 
that  time,  2^^02yled  by  Protestants,  and  the  province  of  Ulster 
'pa,rticidarly,  luhere  was  the  chief  scene  of  the  massacre,  those 

RELATIONS,  UPON  THE  FACE  OF  THEM,  APPEAR  INCREDIBLE.' 

"  Setting  aside  all  opinions  and  calculations  in  this  affair, 
which,  besides  their  uncertainty,  are  without  any  precision 
as  to  the  space  of  time  in  which  the  murders  were  commit- 
ted, the  evidence  from  the  depositions  in  the  manuscript 
above  mentioned  stands  thus  : — The  number  of  people  killed, 
upon  positive  evidence,  collected  in  two  years  after  the  in- 
surrection broke  out,  adding  them  all  together,  amounts  only 
to  two  thousand  one  hundred  and  nine  y  on  the  reports  of 
other  Protestants,  one  thousand  six  hundred  and  nineteen 
more  y  and  on  the  report  of  some  of  the  rebels  themselves, 
a  further  number  of  three  hundred/  the  v/hole  making 
four  thousand  and  twenty-eiglit.  Besides  these  murders 
there  is,  in  the  same  collection,  evidence,  on  the  report  of 
others,  of  eight  thousand  killed  by  ill-usage :  and  if  we 
should  allow  that  the  cruelties  of  the  Irish  out  of  war,  ex- 
tended to  these  numbers,  which,  considering  the  nature  of 
several  of  the  depositions,  I  think  in  my  conscience  we  can- 
not, yet  to  be  impartial  we  must  allow,  that  there  is  no 
pretence  for  laying  a  greater  number  to  their  charge.  This 
account  is  also  corroborated  by  a  letter,  which  I  copied  out 
of  the  council  books  at  Dublin,  written  on  the  fifth  of  May, 
sixteen  hundred  and  fifty -two,  ten  years  after  the  beginning 
of  the  rebellion,  from  the  parliament  commissioners  in  Ire- 
land to  the  English  parliament.      After  exciting  them  to 


*280  APPENDIX, 

further  severity  against  the  Irish,  as  being  afraid  '  their  l>e- 
havior  towards  this  people  may  never  sufficiently  avenge 
their  murders  and  massacres,  and  lest  the  parliament;  might 
shortly  be  in  pursuance  of  a  speedy  settlement  of  this  na- 
tion, and  thereby  some  tender  concessions  might  be  con- 
cluded,' the  commissioners  tell  them  that  it  appears  '  besides 
eight  hundred  and  forty-eight  families,  there  were  killed, 
hanged,  burned,  and  drowned,  six  thousand  and  sixty-two."^  " 
—  'Warner,  297. 

Thus  I  close  this  subject  with  stating,  that  these  hundreds 
of  thousands  are  reduced  by  Carte  to  20,000,  less  ''  several 
thousands  "  and  "  6,000  women  and  children,"  and  "  oth- 
ers;" and  by  Warner  to  about  12,000,  of  whom  only  4,028 
were  murdered  ;  a  large  portion  of  which  detail,  *'  in  his  con- 
science," he  cannot  allow  !  Would  it  not  be  an  insult  to  the 
reader,  to  offer  another  word,  to  prove  the  utter  falsehood 
of  all  the  terrific  statements  given  of  the  subject,  whereby 
the  world  has  been  so  long  and  so  grossly  deceived  ? 

[In  a  subsequent  notice  of  these  statements,  Mr,  Carey  (chap, 
xxix. ,  second  edition)  still  further  exposes  the  falsehoods  and  exag- 
gerations of  the  English  writers.] 

To  establish  the  falsehood  of  these  hideous  portraits  of 
cruelty,  a  few  lines  might  suffice.  Those  lines  would  carry 
conviction.  It  would  be  enough  to  state  the  simple  fact, 
that  the  originals  were  drawn  by  the  miserable  and  aban- 
doned falsifiers,  who  have  so  long  deluded  the  world  with  a 
belief  that  there  were  100,000  persons  massacred  in  one 
week,  200,000  in  a  month,  and  300,000  in  two  years; 
(whereas  sir  William  Petty,  as  I  have  stated,  makes  the 
whole  number  that  fell  in  eleven  years,  by  war,  plague,  fam- 
ine, and  massacre,  112,000,  which  I  have  proved  extrava- 
gantly overrated ;  and  Warner,  who  had  no  partiality  for  the 
Koman  Catholics,  and  who  took  more  pains  to  investigate 
the  subject  than  any  other  Avriter,  either  of  the  seventeenth 
or  eighteenth  century,  reduces  the  number  hilled  out  of  war 


APPENDIX.  281 

to  4,028 ;  with  which  Carte's  account  appears  to  correspond ;) 
— who  have  recorded,  that  a  general  insurrection  and  massa- 
cre took  place  throughout  the  kingdom,  on  the  23d  of  Octo- 
ber, 1641,  whereas  three-fourths  of  it  was,  for  entire  weeks 
afterwards,  in  a  state  of  perfect  tranquillity ; — who  have  also 
recorded  the  falsehood,  that  Ireland  enjoyed  a  sort  of  millen- 
nium for  forty  years  previous  to  the  insurrection,  whereas 
she  suffered,  during  that  period,  every  species  of  the  most 
revolting  tyranny  ;  in  a  word,  who  are  in  almost  every  page 
of  this  work  convicted  of  a  total  disregard  of  truth.  All 
these  stories  were  dictated  by  the  same  spirit  of  imposture  ; 
penned  by  the  same  writers ;  rest,  of  course,  on  the  same 
authority ;  and  the  falsehood  of  those  already  discussed  be- 
ing unanswerably  proved,  the  residue  must  share  the  same 
sentence  of  condemnation. 

Temple,  of  all  the  writers  whom  I  have  quoted,  is  the  only 
original  author.  His  hook  is  one  unvaried  tissue  of  fables^ 
of  which  he  was  himself  so  much  and  so  justly  ashamed,  that 
he  endeavored  to  suppress  it/  a7id  actualli/ refused  permis- 
sion to  the  booksellers  of  London  to  print  a  second  edition.^ 
But  his  endeavors  were  in  vain ;  it  too  much  flattered  the 
existing  prejudices, — too  much  favored  the  views  of  those 
who  unjustly  possessed  the  estates  of  which  the  Irish  were 
plundered,  to  hope  that  it  would  be  allowed  to  sink  into  ob- 
livion. 


*  Extract  of  a  letter  from  the  earl  of  Essex,  lord-lieutenant  of  Ireland,  to  Mr. 
Secretary  Coventry. 

DUBLIN  Castle,  J.vn.  6,  1674-5. 
"I  am  to  acknowledge  the  receipt  of  yours  of  the  22d  of  December,  wherem  you 
mention  a  book  that  was  newly  published,  concerning  the  cruelties  committed  in  Ire- 
land, at  the  beginning  of  the  late  war.  Upon  further  inquiry,  I  find  sir  J.  Temple, 
master  of  the  roUs  here,  author  of  that  book,  was  this  last  year  sent  to  by  several 
stationers  of  London,  to  have  his  consent  to  the  printing  thereof.  But  he  assures 
me  that  he  utterly  de?iied  it ;  and  whoever  printed  it,  did  it  without  his  knowledge. 
Thus  much  I  thought  fit  to  add  to  what  I  formerly  said  upon  this  occasion,  thai  I 
might  do  this  gentleman  right,  i7i  case  it  was  suspected  he  had  any  share  in  pub 
li.'ifiing  this  new  edition.'''' 


2S2  APPENDIX, 

Carte's  account  affords  a  most  striking  display  of  the  in« 
fatuation  that  prevails  on  tliis  topic.  The  reader,  in  page 
378,  will  find  that  he  statesj  that  the  English  were  princi- 
pally settled  in  Leinster  and  Munster ;  that  there  were  few 
murders  committed  in  those  provinces  ;  that  the  insurgents 
spared  the  Scotch,  who  composed  the  great  mass  of  the  Prot- 
estant population  of  Ulster ;  that  there  were  not  in  that 
province  more  than  20,000  English ;  that  of  this  number 
*'  several  thousands  "  escaped  to  Dublin  ;  that  "  G,000  were 
saved  in  Fermanagh  ;  "  that  "  others,"  not  improbably  thou- 
sands, found  an  asylum  in  three  fortified  towns :  and  yet  thia 
same  historian,  in  the  very  same  page,  and  at  the  distance 
of  a  few  lines,  pathetically  and  feelingly  informs  his  readers, 
that  rivers  of  blood  loere  shed  !  !  and  massacres  -perpetrated^ 
lohicli  it  woidd  he  shocking  to  humanity  to  repeat  !  ! 

While  stating  these  particulars,  mixed  sensations  of  as- 
tonishment and  indignation  are  excited,  which  the  reader 
may  conceive,  but  wliich  language  cannot  express.  One  is 
lost  in  the  mass  of  reflections  excited  by  this  stupendous  de- 
lirium of  the  human  mind.  It  affords  another  instance  of 
the  gross  and  glaring  contradictions  so  constantly  found  be- 
tween the  difierent  parts  of  the  same  history  of  Irish  aftairs. 
It  is  an  extraordinary  fatality,  from  which  even  the  very 
few  whose  intentions  appear  correct  have  not  escaped. 

Of  all  the  writers  on  this  subject,  tliere  is  none  deserving 
of  more  tmqualified  censure  than  II%ime.  He  was  under  the 
influence  of  none  of  the  dire  passions  that  actuated  some  of 
the  others.  With  a  powerful  mind  and  keen  penetration,  it 
was  his  duty  to  have  examined  carefully  the  credibility  of 
his  authorities  ;  and  it  required  a  very  cursory  examination, 
indeed,  of  Temple's  history,  to  be  satisfied  that  to  cj^uote  it 
was  an  ineffable  disgrace.  Yet,  astonishing  to  tell,  out  of 
forty-eight  references,  in  his  account  of  the  pretended  mas- 
sacre of  1641,  there  are  no  less  than  thirty-three  to  Temple, 
eleven  to  E-ushworth,  and  only  two  each  to  Nalson  and 
Whitelock.  How  utterly  unworthy  this  procedure  was  of 
the  talents  and  reputation  of  Hume  ;  how  indelible  a  stain 
it  attaches  to  his  memory;  and  how  far,  as  respects  this  in- 
dividual case,  he  is  reduced  to  a  level  with  the  common  race 
of  historians,  may  be  readily  conceived,  from  the  extracts 


APPENDIX.  28S 

which  I  shall  produce  from  Temple's  history.  A  large  por- 
tion of  the  most  horrible  passages,  for  which  he  quotes  that 
work,  are  grounded  on  hearsay  testimony ;  which  is  dis- 
tinctly stated  in  the  depositions,  and  which  therefore  could 
not  have  been  unknown  to  Hume,  and  ought  to  have  for- 
bidden him  to  place  the  least  dependence  on  their  authority. 
But  his  offence  is  not  confined  to  the  original  use  of  those 
"  tales  of  terror."  No  :  a  much  higher  and  more  inexpiable 
one  remains  behind.  Dr.  John  Curry  published  a  work  of 
transcendant  merit,  of  which  the  title  is  "  Historical  and 
Critical  Review  of  the  Civil  Wars  of  Ireland,"  in  which  he 
fully  displayed  the  falsehood,  and  completely  overthrew  the 
narrative,  of  Temple.  The  peculiar  characteristic  of  this 
work  is,  that  almost  every  important  fact  it  contains  is  sup- 
ported by  the  most  indisputable  authority,  not  merely  in 
the  form  of  reference,  but  generally  by  exact  quotation.  It 
may  be  safely  asserted,  that  a  more  valuable  historical  work 
was  never  published.  The  author,  in  1764,  sent  a  copy  of 
it  to  David  Hume,  then  at  Paris,  with  a  request  that  he 
would  give  it  a  candid  consideration,  and  correct  the  errors 
that  he  had  committed,  by  his  dependence  on  such  a  decep- 
tions guide  as  Temple.  To  this  letter  Hume  sent  an  "  eva- 
sive ansvjer^''  *  in  which  he  declined  committing  himself  by 
any  promise ;  and  never,  in  any  subsequent  edition,  cor- 
rected a  single  error  in  this  part  of  his  work.  On  this  con- 
duct, there  can,  among  ujDright  men,  be  but  one  sentence 
pronounced, — a  most  unqualified  sentence  of  reprobation. 


MR.  FROUDE'S  "RELIABLE  AUTHORITIES." 

In  a  little  volume,  entitled  a  "  Historical  Memoir  of  the 
Irish  Rebellion  of  1641,"  (which  O'Connor  assigns  to  Dr. 

*  Hume's  "answer  "  was  as  follows : — "I  am  here  at  such  a  distance  from  my  authori- 
ties, that  I  cannot  produce  all  the  arguments  which  determined  me  to  give  the  account 
you  complain  of,  ^-ith  regard  to  the  Irish  massacre.  I  only  remember  I  sought  trath, 
and  thought  I  found  it.  The  insurrection  might  be  excused  as  having  liberty  for  its 
object.  The  violence  also  of  the  puritanical  parliament  struck  a  just  terror  mto  all 
the  Catholics.  But  the  method  of  conducting  the  rebellion,  if  we  must  caU  it  by  that 
name,  was  certainly  such,  and  you  seem  to  own  it,  as  deserved  the  highest  blame, 
and  was  one  of  the  most  violent  efforts  of  barbarism  and  bigotry  united.        D.  H." 


284  APPENDIX. 

John  Curry,)  published  in  London,  as  a  rej)ly  to  Harris's 
attack  on  Henry  Brooke's  "  Trial  of  the  Cause  of  the  Catho- 
lics," the  author  in  his  "  Introduction  "  records  his  opinion, 
as  given  below,  as  to  the  credibility  of  Temple,  Borlase,  and 
Clarendon,  all  of  whom  are  cited  by  Mr.  Froude  as  "  reliable 
authorities"  on  the  subject  of  the  "rebellion"  of  1641  : — 

"  The  last  of  these  writers  breathes  nothing  but  loyalty  to 
the  King,  and  indignation  against  both  the  English  and  the 
Irish  rebels ;  the  first  plainly  intimates  his  afiection  to  the 
rebels  in  England,  and  suffers  just  so  much  seeming  loyalty 
to  drop  from  his  pen,  as  was  necessary  to  his  Tiiaia  design  of 
blackening  most  effectually  the  Irish  rebels  y  and  as  for  Bor- 
lase, who  has  botched  up  what  he  calls  a  history,  from  ]yil- 
fered  parcels  out  of  both,  he  is  a  perfect  mongrel,  sometimes 
of  one  party,  and  sometimes  of  another ;  but  always  incon- 
sistent with  himself." 

In  another  part  of  the  same  Introduction  the  author  of  the 
"  Memoir  "  says : — 

"  In  order  to  show  upon  what  goodly  authority  those 
slanderers  have  grounded  their  dreadful  charge  of  cruelties, 
pretended  to  have  been  committed  by  the  Irish  rebels,  .  .  . 
I  will  more  particularly  exhibit  the  characters  of  the  original 
relators  of  them ;  namely.  Sir  John  Temple,  Roger,  first 
Earl  of  Orrery,  and  Dr.  Edward  Borlase,  as  they  have  been 
impartially  drawn  by  that  eminent  Protestant  historian,  the 
Bev.  Dr.  ISTalson  [author  of  the  ^  Historical  Collections ']. 
That  candid  writer,  after  assuring  us  that  '  the  then  Lords 
Justices  of  Ireland,  Parsons  and  Borlase,  did  by  their  au- 
thority command  man}'-  things  which  did  not  only  exasper- 
ate, but  'render  the  Irish  desperate,'  adds  :  '  It  is  no  less  no- 
torious that  Sir  John  Temple,  in  writing  the  history  of  this 
rebellion,  loas  bound  by  confederacy  to  assert  the  proceed- 
ings of  these  Lords  Justices;  and  I  cannot  (says  he)  find 
him  highly  in  reputation  with  the  usurpers  of  the  Parlia- 
mentarian faction,  and  by  them  empowered  as  a  commis- 
sioner to  impose,  iqyon  the  Protestant  subjects  of  Pr eland,  that 
traitorous,  disloyal,  and  solemn  league  and  covenant,  which 


APPENDIX.  285 

was  a  direct  oath  of  confederacy,  not  only  against,  but  pur- 
posely to  ruin  and  destroy  the  king,  the  church,  and  the  loyal 
party;  I  cannot  observe  his  hook  to  he  2^i^inted  in  London^  hy 
puhlic  allowance,  in  the  year  1646,  at  a  time  when  no 
books  were  licensed,  but  such  as  made  court  to  the  prevail- 
ing faction  of  the  usurpers,  or  which  might  be  helpful  to  sup- 
port these  calumnies  against  his  Majesty,  especially  as  to 
the  Irish  Rebellion, — without  a  too  just  suspicion  of  his  in- 
tegrity. 

'' '  The  late  Earl  of  Orrery  cannot  escape  the  like  suspi- 
cion ;  .  .  .  nor  is  it  possible  to  regard  him  as  an  impar- 
tial writer,  who  in  the  blackest  of  times  rendered  himself, 
by  his  services  to  the  usurper  (Cromwell),  so  notoriously 
conspicuous  to  the  three  kingdoms;  being,  during  that  gloomy 
scene,  Lord  President  of  Munster.  And  to  instance  another 
of  his  titles,  though  not  so  illustrious,  he  was  agent  for  the 
fanatics  established  by  Cromwell  in  the  estafes  of  those  Irish, 
who,  rej^enting  of  theii'  folly,  had  served  his  Majesty  against 
the  English  rebels. 

'"As  for  Dr.  Borlase,  besides  the  nearness  of  his  relation 
to  one  of  the  Lords  Justices,  and  his  being  openly  and 
avowedly  a  favorite  of  the  faction,  and  the  men  and  actors  of 
those  times,  he  is  an  author  of  such  strange  inconsistency, 
that  his  book  is  rather  a  paradox  than  a  history  ;  and  it 
must  needs  be  so ;  for  (I  know  not  by  what  accident,)  the 
copy  of  the  manuscript  written  by  the  Kt.  Hon.  the  Eiui  of 
Clarendon,  happening  to  fall  into  his  hands,  he  has  very 
unartfully  blended  it  with  his  own  rough  and  unpolished 
heap  of  matters  ;  so  that  his  book  looks  like  a  curious  em- 
broidery, sewn  with  coarse  thread  upon  a  piece  of  sack-web  ; 
and,  truly,  had  he  no  other  crime  but  that  of  a  plagiary,  it 
is  such  a  sort  of  theft  to  steal  the  child  of  another's  brain, 
that  may  very  well  render  him  suspected  not  to  he  overstocked 
with  honesty  and  justice,  so  necessary  to  the  reputation  of  an 
unhlemished  historian.  But  it  is  far  more  unlawful  to  alter 
the  lawful  issue  of  another  man's  pen,  and  thereby  disable  it 
from  propagating  truth,  and  to  teach  it  to  speak  a  language 
vhich  the  parent  never  intended.  And  yet  this  is  the  case 
in  Dr.  Borlase's  history,  in  ivhich  he  has  taken  great2:)cii^^  to 
expunge  some  and  alter  many  pjOjSsages?  "  * 

*  "'Nalson's  "Historical  Collectious."      Introduction. 


286  APPENDIX, 

llae  character  of  tlie  "evidence"  on  wliicli  the  stories 
of  Temple  and  Borlase  rest  is  thus  detailed  by  the  same 
writer : — 

"  Let  ns,  therefore,  by  a  word  or  two,  try  the  depositions 
in  Temple  and  his  copier,  Borlase,  by  the  touchstone  ot 
Lord  Anglesey  and  Dr.  Pett.  And,  first,  are  the  matters 
sworn  in  these  depositions  credible  ?  So  far  from  it,  that 
they  are  forced  to  have  recourse  to  a  miracle — (the  appari- 
tion of  hundreds  of  ghosts,  crying  for  vengeance  on  the 
Irish  !)  to  save  some  of  them  from  appearing  incredible  and 
absurd  !  Secondly — were  the  persons  swearing  credible  ? 
They  were,  many  of  them,  weak  women  and  illiterate  men : 
not  capable  of  reading  or  subscribing  their  own  depositions, 
and  therefore  apt  to  be  imposed  upon  and  deceived  by  those 
who  read  to  them.  A  great  number  of  them  swore  on  mere 
hearsay.  Some  of  them,  afterwards,  touched  with  remorse, 
solemnly  declared  the  contrary  of  what  they  had  sworn  ;  and 
they  were  all,  at  the  time  of  making  their  depositions,  either 
interested  or  malicious  enemies  to  those  against  whom  they 
made  them. 

"Accordingly,  at  the  trial  of  qualifications,  at  Athlone, 
(a  court  held  by  the  regicides,)  where  the  book  called  the 
*  black-book,'  which  contained  these  examinations,  was  jDro- 
duced,  the  same  was  so  falsified  in  most  particulars,  as  well 
by  the  witnesses  themselves,  who  were  pretended  to  have 
been  duly  sworn,  as  also  by  the  persons  said  to  have  been 
murdered,  ivho  were  then,  and  are  yet  (says  my  author,  1662) 
living  /  that  the  said  hook  was,  for  shame,  laid  aside  as  no 
evidence.  And  several  persons  who  had  taken  examinations 
touching  these  murders,  have  frequently  since  acknowledged 
the  falsity  of  the  matters  published  by  them,  as  being  had 
from  the  information  of  those  who,  by  the  hurry  of  the 
times,  and  their  own  frights,  were  so  transported,  that  they 
swore  all  their  neighbors,  whom  they  left  behind  them,  were 
murdered ;  whereas  all,  or  most  of  them,  were  afterwards 
found  living." 

Of  the  bloodthirsty  readiness  with  which  Sir  Charles 
Coote  entered  upon  the  work  of  plundering  and  slaughtering 
the  defenceless  people,  the  evidence  is  given  in  a  letter  ad- 


APPENDIX.  287 

(li*essed  by  the  Lords  of  the  Pale  "  to  the  nobility  and  gentry 
of  the  County  of  Galway."  This  document,  the  author  of 
the  "Historical  Memoir"  states, was  dated  December,  1641, 
and  received  the  2d  of  February  following,  showing  that 
previously  that  part  of  Ireland  had  taken  no  share  in  the 
insurrection ;  while  the  manner  in  which  those  who  did  rise 
were  goaded  on  is  shown  in  the  context.     The  writers  say  : 

'^  You,  we  are  confident,  with  the  same  affliction,  took 
notice  with  us  to  how  little  purpose  we  sat  in  Parliament ; 
when  redress  of  our  grievances  must  not  only  move  first 
from,  but  receive  the  approvement  of  those  wlio,  commonly, 
were  the  authors  of  them.  These,  with  the  late  demeanors 
of  some  ministers  of  the  State,  since  tliis  commotion,  by 
cruelly  putting  to  death  some  of  his  Majesty's  subjects  in 
the  county  of  Wicklow,  as  also  at  Santry,  and  burning  sev- 
eral gentlemen's  houses  and  haggards,  and  taking  away  all 
their  goods  without  any  other  cause  than  that  they  ivere 
Catholics  y  as  also  the  inhuman  advice  of  Sir  Charles  Coote 
to  the  Lord  Justices,  to  execute  a  general  massacre  upon  all 
of  our  religion,  ivhich  he  offered  to  perform,  had  the  Council 
consented  thereto,  having  induced  us  to  enter  into  an  asso- 
ciation, wherein  we  desire  you  will  be  pleased  to  join,  that, 
with  an  unanimous  consent,  we  may  vindicate  the  honor  of 
our  sovereign,  assure  the  liberties  of  our  consciences,  and 
preserve  the  fi-eedom  of  this  Kingdom,  under  the  sole  obedi- 
ence of  his  sacred  Majesty,  Avliom  God  long  preserve,"  etc. 


THE   MASSACRE   IN   "  ISLAND-MAGEE." 

In  his  "  Review  of  the  Civil  Wars  in  Ireland,"  the 
learned  Dr.  John  Curry  gives  the  following  particulars  re- 
garding the  massacre  of  the  Irish  at  "  Island-Magee,"  by 
the  English  and  Scotch  Puritans  of  Carrickfergus  : — 

''  The  report  that  his  Majesty's  Protestasit  subjects  first 
fell  upon  and  murdered  the  Roman  Catholics,  got  credit  and 
reputation,  and  was  openly  and  frequentl}^  asserted,"  says 


288  APPENDIX. 

Jones,  Bishop  of  Meafch,  in  a  letter  to  Dr.  Borlase,  in  1679. 
And  Sir  Auclley  Mervyn,  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
in  a  public  speech  to  the  Duke  of  Ormonde,  in  1662,  con- 
fesses, "  that  several  pamphlets  then  swarmed,  to  fasten  the 
rise  of  tJds  rebellion  uj^on  the  Protestants  y'  and  that  they 
drew  the  first  blood."  And,  indeed,  whatever  cruelties  may 
be  charged  upon  the  Irish,  in  the  prosecution  of  this  war, 
*' their  first  intention,  we  see,"  says  another  Protestant 
voucher,  (Warner,  "  Hist.  Irish  Hebellion,'^''  jj.  47,)  "  went 
no  further  than  to  strip  the  English  and  the  Protestants  of 
their  power  and  possessions,  and,  unless  forced  to  it  by 
opposition,  not  to  shed  any  blood."  Even  Temple  confesses 
the  same ;  for,  mentioning  what  mischiefs  were  done  in  the 
beginning  of  this  insurrection,  he  says :  "  Certainly,  that 
which  these  rebels  mainly  intended  at  first,  and  most  busily 
employed  themselves  about,  was  the  driving  away  the  Eng- 
lishmen's cattle,  and  possessing  themselves  of  their  goods." 
(Temple's  "  Irish  Hehelliony) 

In  a  MS.  journal  of  an  officer  in  the  King's  service, 
quoted  by  Mr.  Carte  {^^  Life  of  Ormonde,''^  vol.  i.),  wherein 
there  is  a  minute  and  daily  account  of  everything  that  hap- 
pened in  the  North  of  Ireland  during  the  first  weeks  of  this 
insurrection,  there  is  not  even  an  insinuation  of  any  cruel- 
ties committed  by  the  insurgents,  on  the  English  or  Protes- 
tants, although  it  is  computed  by  the  journalist  "  that 
the  Protestants  of  that  province  had  killed  near  a  thousand 
of  the  rebels,  in  the  first  week  or  two  of  the  rebellion." 
And,  on  the  16th  of  November,  1641,  "Mr.  Robert  Wall- 
bank  came  from  the  North,  and  informed  the  Irish  House 
of  Commons,  that  two  hundred  of  the  people  of  Coleraine 
fought  with  one  thousand  of  tlie  rebels,  slew  six  of  them, 
and  not  one  of  themselves  hurt.  That,  in  another  battle, 
sixty  of  the  rebels  were  slain,  and  only  two  of  the  others 
hurt ;  none  slain."  {lournals  of  the  Irish  Commons^  Ap- 
pendix.) Nor  do  we  find,  in  this  account,  the  least  men- 
tion of  cruelties  then  committed  by  the  Irish;  but  much  of 
the  success  and  victory  of  his  Majesty's  Protestant  subjects, 
as  often  as  they  encountered  them.* 


*  Leland,  iu  his  '■'■History  of  Ireland,'"  vol.  iii.,  p.  101,  says:  "It  was  deter- 
mined (by  the  insurgents,  in  the  beginning  of  the  insurrection)  that  the  enterprise 
Bhould  be  conducted,  in  every  quarter,  with  as  little  bloodshed  aa  possible." 


APPENDIX.  289 

That  a  great  number  of  unoffending  Irisli  were  massacred 
in  Island-Magee,  by  Scottish.  Puritans,  about  the  beginning 
of  this  insurrection,  is  not  denied  by  any  adverse  writer  that 
I  have  met  with.  An  apology,  however,  is  made  for  it  by 
them  all,  which,  even  if  it  were  grounded  on  fact,  as  I  shall 
presently  show  it  is  not,  would  be  a  very  bad  one,  and  seems, 
at  least,  to  imply  a  confession  of  the  charge.  Those  writers 
pretend  that  this  massacre  was  perpetrated  on  those  harm- 
less people,  in  revenge  of  some  cruelties  before  coromitted, 
by  the  rebels,  on  the  Scots,  in  other  parts  of  Ulster.  But  as 
1  find  this  controversy  has  been  already  taken  up  by  two 
able  Protestant  historians,  who  seem  to  difier  fibout  the  time 
in  which  that  dismal  event  happened,  perhaps  by  laying  be- 
fore the  reader  the  accounts  of  both,  with  such  animadver- 
sions as  naturally  arise  from  them,  that  time  may  be  more 
clearly  and  positively  ascertained. 

A  late  learned  and  ingenious  author  of  a  history  of  Ire- 
land (Leland)  has  shifted  off  this  shocking  incident  from  ISTo- 
vember,1641  (in  which  month  it  has  been  generally  placed), 
to  January  following,  many  weeks  after  horrible  cruelties 
(as  he  tells  us)  had  been  committed  by  the  insurgents  on  the 
Scots  in  the  North.  "  The  Scottish  soldiers,"  says  he, 
"  who  had  reinforced  the  garrison  of  Carrickfergus,  were 
possessed  of  an  habitual  hatred  of  Popery,  and  inflamed  to 
an  implacable  detestation  of  the  Irish,  by  multiplied  accounts 
of  their  cruelties.  In  one  fatal  night  they  issued  from  Car- 
rickfergus, into  an  adjacent  district  called  Island-Magee, 
where  a  number  of  the  poorer  Irish  resided,  unoffending  and 
uataiiited  ivith  the  rebellion.  If  we  may  believe  one  of  the  lead- 
ers of  this  parti/,  THIRTY  FAMILIES  were  assailed  hy 
them,  in  their  beds,  and  massacred  with  calm  and  deliberate 
cruelty.  As  if,"  proceeds  the  historian,  "  the  incident  were 
not  sufficiently  hideous,  Popish  writers  have  represented  it 
v/ith  shocking  aggravation.  They  make  the  number  of  the 
slaughtered,  in  a  small  and  thinly  inhabited  neck  of  land,  to 
amount  to  three  thousand,  a  wildness  and  absurdity  into 
which  other  writers  of  such  transactions  have  been  betrayed  ; 
they  assert  that  this  butchery  was  committed  in  the  begin- 
ning of  November,  1641,  that  it  was  the  first  massacre  com- 
mitted in  Ulster,  and  the  great  provocation  to  all  the  out- 
rages of  the  Irish  in  this  quarter.     Mr.  Carte  seems  to  favor 


290  APPENDIX. 

this  assertion ;  liacl  lie  carefully  perused  the  collection  of 
original  depositions  now  in  the  possession  of  the  XJnivers;  ty 
of  Dublin,  he  would  have  found  his  doubts  of  facts  and 
dates  cleared  most  satisfactorily ;  and  that  the  massacre  at 
Island-Magee,  as  appears  from  several  unsuspicious  evi- 
dences, was  really  committed  in  the  beginning  of  January, 
Y/hen  the  followers  of  O'Nial  had  almost  exhausted  their 
barbarous  malice."  *     {Hist,  of  Ireland,  vol.  iii.) 

Before  I  examine  the  several  particulars  of  the  foregoing 
account,  I  must  observe  that  the  objection  taken  from  the 
smallness  of  the  place,  as  if  it  were  incapable  of  containing 
three  thousand  inhabitants,  is  grounded  on  a  misapprehen- 
sion of  some  circumstances  in  this  event.  For  the  Irish 
that  were  destroyed  consisted  not  only  of  the  inhabitants  of 
the  place,  but  also,  and  for  the  greatest  part,  of  the  country 
people  residing  in  its  neighborhood,  who,  upon  the  invita- 
tions of  Colonel  Chichester  and  Sir  Arthur  Tyrringham,  had 
fled  to  Carrickfergus  for  protection,  on  the  first  eruption  of 
these  tumults.  "  The  tov/n  of  Carrickfergus,"  says  Mr. 
Carte,  "  was  then  the  place  of  the  greatest  strength  in  the 
North  ;  and  as  Colonel  Chichester  and  Sir  Arthur  Tyrring- 
ham had,  on  the  evening  of  the  23d  of  October,  received 
intelligence  of  the  insurrection,  they  immediately,  by  beat 
of  drum  and  kindling  of  fires,  apprised  all  the  country  people 
round  them  of  their  danger ;  so  that  the  poor  country  people, 
who  had  not  yet  stirred,  flocked  to  that  place  continually, 
with  all  they  could  carry  of  their  substance  "  (another  temp- 
tation to  commit  the  massacre),  "  in  such  multitudes  of  men, 
women,  and  children,  that  the  town  was  overthronged." 
The  same  author  also  informs  us,  that  "  Colonel  Chichester 
and  Sir  Arthur  Tyrringham  invited  several  of  the  most  emi- 
nent of  the  Irish  thereabouts,  who  yet  remained  quiet  in 

*  Sii-  Piiciim  O'Neil.  This  assertion  has  no  other  foundation  than  the  depositions 
in  the  Univeroily  of  Dublin.  What  credit  is  due  to  these  we  shall  just  now  see  ;  but 
if  any  re.i,'ard  at  all  is  to  be  had  to  such  of  them  as  have  been  carefully  selected  from 
the  rest  and  pubUshed  by  Temple  and  Borlase,  in  their  histories  of  this  rebellion,  we 
shall  find  some  of  them  vouching  the  contrary  of  this  relation,  viz.,  that  Sir  Fhelim 
O'Xeil  did  not  order  the  cruelties  he  is  charged  with  ordering  till  many  weeks  after 
Januarj',  1641.  For  by  Captain  Parian's  examination,  "  Sir  Phelim  began  his  nias- 
saeres  after  his  flight  from  Dundalk."  (Temple,  p.  85.)  Now  his  flight  from  Dim. 
dSlk,  according  to  Carte,  did  not  happen  till  about  the  latter  end  of  March  following, 
{''■  Life  of  Ormonde"  yo\.  i.) 


APPENDIX.  291 

their  houses,  to  come  to  Carrickfergiis  for  security ;  "who  ac- 
cordingly went  thither,  hut  ivei-e  made  prisoners  on  their 
arrival.''^ 

And  because  it  is  allowed  that  Mr.  Carte  seems  to  favor 
the  assertion  "  that  near  three  thousand  innocent  Irish  were 
massacred  in  Island-Magee,  in  the  beginning  of  November, 
1G41,"  it  is  but  just  to  produce  the  reasons  which  appear  to 
have  inclined  him  to  that  way  of  thinking,  by  inserting  the 
passage  at  large,  wherein  they  are  contained  : — 

"On  the  15th  of  November,"  says  this  well-informed 
writer,  "the  rebels,  after  a  fortnight's  siege,  reduced  the 
castle  of  Lurgan ;  Sir  William  Bromlow,  after  a  stout  de- 
fence, surrendering  it  on  the  terms  of  marching  out  with  his 
family  and  goods;  but  such  was  the  unv/orthy  disposition 
of  the  rebels,  that  they  kept  him,  his  lady,  and  children, 
prisoners,  rifled  his  house,  plundered,  stripped,  and  killed 
most  of  his  servants,  and  treated  all  the  townsmen  in  the 
same  manner.  This,"  adds  he,  "was  the  first  breach  of  faith 
which  the  rebels  were  guilty  of  in  these  parts  (there  was 
then  no  other  insurrection  in  any  of  the  other  parts  of  Ire- 
land), in  regard  of  articles  of  capitulation ;  for,  v/hen  Mr. 
Conway,  on  November  the  5th,  surrendered  his  castle  of 
Bally-aghie,  in  the  county  of  Deny,  to  them,  they  kept  the 
terms  for  which  he  stipulated,  and  allowed  him  to  march 
out  with  his  men,  and  to  carry  away  trunks  with  plate  and 
money  in  them.  Whether,"  proceeds  Mr.  Carte,  "  the  slaugh- 
ter made  hy  a  party  from  Carrickfergus,  in  the  territory 
of  3Iagee,  a  long  narrow  island,  in  which,  it  is  affirmed,  that 
near  three  thousand  harmless  Irish  men,  women,  and  children 
were  cruelly  massacred,  happened  before  the  surrender  of 
Lurgan,  is  hard  to  be  determined ;  the  relations  published 
of  facts,  in  those  times,  being  very  indistinct  and  uncertain, 
with  regard  to  the  time  they  were  committed,  though  it  is 
confidently  asserted  that  the  said  massacre  happened  in  this 
month  of  November." 

Let  us  now  try  these  different  accounts  by  the  only  sure 
test  of  dates  and  facts.  It  is  confessed  on  all  hands  that 
the  chiefs  of  the  insurgents,  through  fear  of  the  Scots  in 
Ulster,  ("  who,"  as  the  Earl  of  Clanrickarde  informs  us, 
"  were  forty  thousand  well-armed  men,  Avhen  the  rebellion 


2i^2  APPENDIX. 

commenced,"  at  the  same  time  that  tlie  rebels  were,  at  least, 
by  half  less  numerous,  and  furnished  with  few  better  weapons 
than  '*  staves,  scythes,  and  pitchforks,")  published  a  procla- 
mation "forbidding  their  followers,  on  pain  of  death,  to 
molest  any  of  the  Scottish  nation,  in  body  or  goods."  Tem- 
ple acknowledges  that  "  this  proclamation  was,  for  a  time, 
observed ;  "  and  from  Mr.  ^Yallbank's  report,  already  men- 
tioned, to  the  House  of  Commons,  of  the  constant  success 
of  his  Majesty's  forces  in  defeating  the  insurgents  in  different 
parts  of  Ulster,  from  the  23d  of  October  to  the  16th  of 
November  following,  we  may  reasonably  suppose  that  it 
v/as  at  least  observed  till  that  day,  for  it  is  surely  in  the 
highest  degree  improbable  that  these  chiefs  would,  at  any 
time  before,  have  wantonly  provoked  the  resentment  of  so 
formidable  a  body  of  men,  by  any  cruel  outrage  or  hostile 
act.  But  it  is  unquestionably  evident,  that  the  Scots  in 
Ulster  did  some  remarkable  execution  on  the  Irish,  several 
days  before  the  15  th  of  November,  the  day  on  Avhich 
Lurgan  was  surrendered.  For  Sir  V/illiam  Parsons,  in  a 
letter  from  Dublin,  of  the  13tli  of  that  month,  to  the  Earl 
of  Cianrickarde,  acquaints  him,  as  with  a  welcome  piece  of 
news,  that  "  the  Scots  did  hold  the  northern  Irish  haixl  to 
it,  having  killed  some  of  them."  And  Sir  William  St. 
Ledcjer,  ajrudoina:,  as  it  were,  the  Scots  the  honor  of  that 
action,  told  the  Earl  of  Ormonde,  on  the  14th,  that,  "  had 
it  pleased  God  that  his  lordship  had  been  there  with  his 
hundred  horse,  and  himself  to  wait  upon  him,  the  Scots 
should  never  have  had  the  honor  to  put  such  an  obligation 
on  Ireland." 

From  hence,  I  think,  may  fairly  be  deduced  the  only  rea- 
son, why  the  behavior  of  the  insurgents  to  Sir  William 
Bromlow,  on  the  15th  of  November,  was  so  very  different 
from  that  which  they  had  before  shown  to  Mr.  Conway,  on 
the  5  th  of  the  same  month,  viz. :  because  the  massacre  in 
question  was  perpetrated  on  their  innocent,  iinoffending 
people,  in  that  interval  of  time  ;  which,  no  doubt,  provoked 
them  to  the  above-mentioned  breach  of  articles  at  the  sur- 
render of  Lurgan,  and  to  several  other  acts  of  injustice  and 
cruelty  in  the  prosecution  of  this  war. 

The  deduction  now  made  is  so  agreeable  to  dates  and 
facts,  that  I  am  surprised  to  find  tliis  first  breach  of  articles 


APPENDIX.  293 

bj  tlie  insurgents  ascribed  to  any  other  cause ;  especially  to 
one  which  appears  manifestly  repugnant  to  both.  This 
cause,  we  are  informed,  was  the  repulse,  defeat,  and  slaughter 
of  a  considerable  body  of  the  rebels  at  the  siege  of  Lisburn, 
by  a  Scottish  garrison  stationed  there ;  for  thus  the  before- 
cited  history  relates  the  immediate  effects  Vv'hich  that  disas- 
ter produced  in  these  rebels  :  "  But  such  success  "  (of  the 
Scots)  "  was  attended  with  consequences  truly  horrible ;  the 
Irish,  incensed  at  resistance,  carried  on  their  hostilities  with- 
out faith  or  humanity.  Lurgan  v^as  surrendered  by  Sir 
William  Bromlow,  on  terms  of  security  to  the  inhabitants, 
and  permission  of  marching  out  with  his  family,  goods,  and 
retinue ;  but  all  were  instantly  seized,  and  the  whole  town 
given  up  to  plunder."  Thus  have  we  a  cause  plausibly  as- 
signed, v/hich  did  not  exist  until  many  days  after  its  sup- 
posed effect  v/as  produced.  For  the  defeat  and  slaughter  of 
the  rebels  at  Lisburn,  or,  as  it  was  then  called,  Lisnegarvy, 
did  not  happen,  according  to  Borlase,  till  the  28th  Novem- 
ber; but  Lurgan,  as  we  have  seen,  was  surrendered  to  them 
on  the  15th  of  that  month,  thirteen  days  before. 

Let  us  now  see  upon  what  grounds  this  massacre  in 
Island- Magee  is  transferred  from  November,  1G41,  to  the  be- 
ginning of  January  following.  One  would  ex})ect  to  find  an 
assertion  so  singular  supported  by  some  solid,  or  at  least 
plausible  proof;  but  instead  of  meeting  with  any  such,  in 
the  place  before  quoted  from  this  history,  we  are  only  there 
directed  to  look  out  for  it  (v/here  certainly  it  never  can  be 
found)  in  the  collection  of  original  manuscript  depositions 
now  in  the  possession  of  the  University  of  Dublin.  But  Ave 
shall  presently  demonstrate  the  insufficiency,  not  to  say  fu- 
tility, of  proofs  drawn  from  these  depositions.^'  And,  in 
truth,  if  they  were  to  be  admitted  as  proofs,  or  evidence  in 
any  degree,  there  is  hardly  anything  so  incredible  or  absurd, 
that  might  not,  with  equal  reason,  be  obtruded  upon  us  for 
genuine  history.  Every  suggestion  of  frenzy  and  melan- 
choly ;  miraculous  escapes  from  death,  visions  of  spirits 
cha,unting  hymns  ;    ghosts,  rising  from  rivers,    brandishing 

*  "  A.n.v  one  (says  Mr.  Carte)  who  has  ever  read  the  examinations  and  dcpositiona 
here  referred  to,  which  were  generally  given  npon  hearsay,  and  contradicthig  'One 
another,  would  think  it  very  hard  upon  the  Irish,  to  have  all  those,  \vithout  disti no- 
tion, to  be  admitted  as  evidence." 


294  APPENDIX. 

swords,  and  slirieking  revenge,  would  have  a  juBt  and  ra- 
tional title  to  our  belief,  having,  all  of  them,  received  the 
sanction  of  these  vouchers. 

The  original  depositions  in  the  2^ossession  of  the  University 
of  Dublin  considered/^ 

I  shall  now  briefly  consider  the  nature  of  that  evidence 
which  has  hitherto  induced  so  many  people,  learned  and  un- 
learned, to  give,  or  at  least  seem  to  give  credit  to  those  hor- 
rible relations  of  murders  and  massacres  which  have  been 
imputed  to  these  insurgents; — evidence  that,  in  itself,  is 
so  manifestly  futile,  contradictory,  or  false,  that  I  am  j:)er- 
suaded  every  person  of  common  sense  would  be  ashamed  to 
produce  the  like  upon  any  ordinary  occasion. 

The  evidence  I  mean  is  that  huge  collection  of  manu- 
script depositions  (consisting  of  thirty-tv/o  folio  volumes) 
which  are  said  to  have  been  sworn,  on  the  subject  of  the  out- 
rages and  depredations  committed  by  the  insurgents,  in  this 
war,  and  are  now  in  the  possession  of  the  University  of 
Dublin.  From  this  enormous  heap  of  inalignity  and  non- 
sense, Temple  and  JBorlase  have  selected  such  examinations  as 
ap>peared  to  them  the  least  exceptionahle,  and  consequently  the 
most  likely  to  obtain  credit  to  their  horrible  narrations.  To 
these,  therefore,  I  shall  refer  the  reader  as  a  select  sjyecimen 
of  the  rest:  after  I  have  submitted  to  his  consideration  what 
Dr.  Warner  (who,  it  seems,  underwent  the  drudgery  of  per- 
using and  examining  the  whole  collection)  has  left  as  his 
opinion  of  it.  "  Besides  the  examinations,"  says  he, 
*'  signed  by  the  commissioners,  there  are  several  copies  of 
others,  said  to  be  taken  before  them,  which  are,  therefore,  of 
no  autliority  ;  and  there  are  many  depositions  taken  ten  years 
after,  which  are  still  less  authentic.  As  gi-eat  stress,"  adds 
the  Doctor,  "  has  been  laid  upon  this  collection,  in  print  and 
conversation,  among  the  Protestants  of  Ireland ;  and  as  the 
whole  evidence  of  the  massacre  turns  upon  it,  T  si)ent  a  gi^eat 
deal  of  time  in  examining  these  books  ;  and  I  am  sorry  to 
saj^,  that  they  have  been  made  the  foundation  of  mucli  more 
clamor  a,nd  resentment  than  can  be  warranted  by  truth  and 


*  Curry's  "Review  of  the  Civil  Wars  iii  Ireland ''  (ISIO),  Chap,  IV. 


APPENDIX.  295 

"There  is  one  circumstance  in  these  books,  not  taken  no- 
tice of  by  any  before  me,  which  is,  that  though  all  the  ex- 
aminations signed  by  the  Commissioners  are  said  to  be  upon 
oath,  yet  in  infinitely  the  greater  number  of  them,  the  words 
'  being  duly  sworn,'  have  the  pen  drawn  through  them,  Avith 
the  same  ink  with  which  the  examinations  are  written ;  and 
in  several' of  those  where  such  words  remain,  many  parts  of 
the  examinations  are  crossed  out.  This  is  a  circumstance  . 
which  shows,  that  the  bulk  of  this  immense  collection  is 
parole  evidence ;  and  what  sort  of  evidence  that  is,  may  be 
easily  learned  by  those  who  are  conversant  with  the  common 
people  of  any  country,  especially  when  their  imaginations 
are  terrified,  and  their  passions  heated  by  sufferings.  Of 
what  credit  are  depositions  worthy,"  adds  he,  "  (and  several 
such  there  are,)  that  many  of  the  Protestants,  that  w^ere 
drowned,  were  often  seen  in  erect  postures  in  the  river,  and 
shrieking  out  revenge  ?  "  * 

At  the  same  time  that  Dr.  Warner  rejects  the  deposi- 
tions now  in  the  possession  of  the  University  of  Dublin,  he 
informs  us,  "  that  he  has,  in  his  own  possession,  a  choice  and 
duly  attested  copy  of  such  of  these  examinations  only,  as 
were  taken  on  oath  ;  vv^hich,"  says  he,  "  'demonstrates  the 
falsehood  of  tiie  relation  in  every  Protestant  history  of  this 
'rebellion.^''  Had  the  Doctor  favored  the  v/orld  with  a  pub- 
lication of  these  choice  examinations,  or  even  an  abstract  of 
them,  we  should  then  be  in  some  measure  able  to  judge  of 
their  authenticity ;  whereas  at  present  we  have  only  his  bare 
word  for  it.  However,  from  an  anecdote  which  he  himself 
has  related,  concerning  the  first  real  and  original  examina- 
tions, we  may  fairly  conclude  that  his  fp.vorite  copy  of  them, 
however  well  attested,  deserves  not  a  jot  more  credit  than 
those  which  he  has  already  so  justly  condemned.  That 
anecdote  imports,  "  that  soon  after  the  Restoration,  when  the 
claims  in  favor  of  innocents  were  canvassed,  and  the  House 
of  Commons  desired,  that  none  of  those  whose  names  could 
be  found  in  the  depositions,  might  be  heard,  relating  to  such 

*  "Hundreds  of  ghosts  of  Protestants"  (says  Temple,  from  these  depositions), 
"  that  were  dro'-vned  by  the  rebels  at  Pcrtuadoi:\7i  bridge,  'icere  seen  in  the  river  boU- 
uiiright,  and  were  heard  to  cry  out  for  reve?ir/e  on  these  rebels.  One  of  the  ghostt 
was  seen  with  hands  lifted  up,  and  standmg  in  tliat  posture,  from  the  2dih  of  Decem- 
ber to  the  latter  end  of  the  following  Lent  1 " 


20G  APPENDIX. 

claims  of  innocency ;  the  Duke  of  Ormonde,  thongli  no  friend 
to  the  Irish,  for  good  reasons  rejected  the  proposal.  The 
Duke,"  adds  he,  "  probable  knev/  too  much  of  these  exam- 
inations, and  the  methods  used  in  procuring  them,  to  give 
them  such  a  stamp  of  authority  ;  or  otherwise  it  would  have 
been  the  clearest  and  shortest  proof  of  the  guilt  of  such  as 
were  named  in  them." 

Upon  this  occasion,  I  submit  it  to  the  consideration  of 
every  candid  and  intelligent  reader,  whether  depositions 
found  insufficient  to  convict  the  persons,  or  confiscate  the 
properties  of  the  Irish  then  living,  ought  to  be  now  deemed 
proper  and  competent  evidence  to  impeach  the  characters 
or  principles  of  their  innocent  descendants,  at  that  time  un- 
born ?  or  whether  any  person  now  existing  can  be  thought 
to  be  so  well  qualified,  either  by  want  of  partiality  to  the 
Irish,  or  by  the  knowledge  of  their  case,  to  judge  of  the 
Aveight  or  futility  of  that  evidence,  as  the  Duke  of  Ormonde 
Avas,  at  that  juncture?  And,  conscious  of  this  material  de- 
fect in  the  original  examinations,  with  what  probability  of 
success  could  Dr.  Warner  rely  on  his  ov/n  copy  of  them,  how 
well  soever  attested,  as  capable  of  ascertaining  the  facts, 
which  he  has  so  confidently  related  out  of  it  ?  * 

[The  able  and  painstaking  author  of  "  The  CrornweUian  Settle- 
ment of  Ireland"  (Mr.  John  P.  Prendergast),  whom  Mr.  Froude 
himself  quotes  as  a  most  reliable  historian,  in  the  second  edition  of 
his  work  (London,  1S70)  makes  .he  following  observations  on  the 
evidence  relied  on  by  the  English  fabricators  of  the  massacres  of 
1041.] 

''  The  proper  evidences  to  prove  or  disprove  this  dreadful 
massacre  are,  of  course,  authentic  contemporaneous  docu- 
ments— not  compilations  of  a  later  age,  like  Hume's  '  His- 
tory of  England,'  or  even  the  ponderous  pamphlets  of  pra^ty 
writers  of  the  day,  like  Milton  and  Clarendon,  strangers  to 
Ireland  and  its  transactions. 


*  Warner  himself  confesses,  "that  so  many  of  the  rebels'  sayings  to  their  Protes- 
tant and  English  prisoners,  which  are  recorded  even  in  the  choice  manuscript  collec- 
tion of  depositions  in  his  custody,  are  so  ridiculous,  incredible,  or  contradictory  to 
cue  another,  as  show  plainly,  that  they  spoke  what  their  own  or  different  passions  of 
their  leaders  prompted  them  to." 


APPENDIX.  29  T 

*'  Tliere  is  one  document  that  ouglit  to  be  decisive  in  this 
case  and  it  would  have  been  so  if  the  English  c«f  Ireland 
were  not  interested  enough,  and  the  English  of  England 
prejudiced  enough,  to  propagate  and  perpetuate  any  cal- 
umny, to  the  damage  of  the  fame  and  national  character  of 
the  j^eople  of  Ireland.  It  is  the  follovving :  Just  two  months 
after  the  outbreak,  the  Government  issued  a  Commission 
under  tlie  Great  Seal,  to  seven  despoiled  Protestant  Minis- 
ters, to  take  evidence  ujDon  oath  '  to  keep  up  the  memory  of 
the  outrages  committed  by  the  Irish  to  posterity.' 

"  The  Commission,  dated  23d  of  December,  1641,  was, 
in  its  original  form,  to  take  an  account  of  losses.  It  was 
amended,  on  the  18th  of  tTamiary,  1642,  to  include  Tiiurders. 
So  that  this  was  an  after-thought ;  a  thing  scarce  possible,  if 
there  had  been  a  general  massacre.  The  first  Commission 
recites  '  that  many  British  and  Protestants  have  been  sep- 
arated from  their  habitations,  and  others  deprived  of  their 
goods ; '  the  Commissioners  are  accordingly  to  examine  upon 
oath,  concerning  the  amount  of  loss,  the  names  of  the  rob- 
bers, and  v/hat  traitorous  speeches  were  uttered  by  the  rob- 
bers or  others.  The  second  adds,  '  And  what  violence  was 
done  by  the  robbers,  and  how  often,  and  what  numbers 
have  been  murthered,  or  have  perished  afterwards,  on  the 
way  to  Dublin  or  elsewhere.'  And  the  remonstrance  shows 
that  the  outrages,  in  spite  of  the  Commissioners'  attempt 
to  present  the  most  terrible  pictures,  were,  for  the  most 
part,  only  such  as  necessarily  followed  the  stripping  the 
English  and  driving  them  from  their  possessions,  as  these 
planters  had  driven  the  Irish  from  theirs,  thirty  years  be- 
fore ;  and  that  the  murders  were  fewer  than  have  occurred  in 
similar  insurrections,  where  of  course  some  would  be  slain 
resisting  the  pillagers  of  their  homesteads.  The  Commis- 
sioners seem  unconscious  of  any  general  massacre.  The 
murders  they  record  are  the  occurrences  of  four  months, 
collected  from  difierent  parts  of  Ulster.  In  the  few  in- 
stances where  any  numbers  were  slain,  some  of  them  at 
least  were  plainly  acts  of  war, — though  the  Commissionej'S 
would  have  them  supposed  to  be  cold-blooded  murders, — • 
and  occurred  late  in  December.  So  far  therefore  from  war- 
ranting the  supposed  extensive  massacre  of  the  English, 
this  official  account  disproves  it,  and  shoves  how  baseless  is 


298  APPENDIX. 

Clarendon's  story  of  forty  tlioiisand  or  fifty  thousand  Eng- 
lisli  murdered  before  they  knew  where  they  were,  or  of  an 
incredible  number  of  men,  women,  and  children  promiscu- 
ously slaughtered  in  ten  days,  as  he  elsewhere  has  it ;  or  of 
one  hundred  and  fifty -four  thousand,  or  three  hundred 
thousand,  massacred  in  cold  blood.  The  letters  of  the  Lords 
Justices  during  the  first  months  of  the  rebellion  are  equally 
silent  concerning  any  massacre  ;  and  their  Proclamation  of 
8th  February,  1642,  while  it  falsely  charges  the  Irish  with 
the  design,  says  it  had  failed.     All  the  accounts  of  the  time 

are  full  of  the  crowds  driven  out,  not  murdered 

'•Bishop  Bedel,  of  Kilmore,  remained  in  his  palace  unharm- 
ed, his  flocks  untouched,  surrounded  by  crowds  of  English 
that  fled  thither  as  to  a  port  of  safety,  and  lay  in  his  barns 
and  stables,  and  even  on  hay  in  the  churchyard.  Thither 
fled  the  Bishop  of  Elphin  and  a  train  of  Koscommon  exiles, 
and  there  he  enjoyed  such  a  heaven  upon  earth  for  three 
weeks,  that  he  would  willingly  have  endured  another  Irish 
stripping  to  enjoy  again  such  holy  converse.  For  the  Irish 
never  hindered  these  two  Bishops  and  their  poor  flocks  from 
using  their  religious  exercises,*  though  their  own  was  made 
a  crime ;  and  seven  priests,  reprieved  by  the  King,  were 
hanged  in  England  at  this  time,  at  the  angry  demand  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  simply  for  saying  Mass.  In  November, 
an  Irish  priest  arrived  at  Bishop  Bedel's  to  conduct  them  to 
Dublin.  The  Bishop  of  Elphin  and  the  rest  departed,  leav- 
ing Bedel  and  his  family  behind.  Bedel  died  there  in  Feb- 
ruary, 1642,  and  the  Irish  paid  him  honor  by  firing  over  his 
grave.  His  family  continued  there  unmolested  until  the  15th 
of  June,  1642,  when  they  joined  a  party  of  1340  English,  that, 
by  treaty  with  the  Irish,  were  escorted  safely  to  Sir  Henry 
Tichborne's  garrison  at  Drogheda.  Of  the  Bishop  of  Elphin's 
company  not  one  miscarried,  nor  was  a  thread  of  the  gar- 
ments that  Bedel  gave  the  stripped  English  touched  by  the 

rebels  on  their  way Bedel  is  always  represented  to 

have  died  a  prisoner,  though  he  was  only  removed  for  a 
fortnight  to  the  neighboring  Castle  of  Cloughouter,  by  order 
from  Kilkenny,  on  the  advance  of  an  English  force,  and 

*  Life  of  Bishop  Bedel,  by  his  son-in-law,  Alexander  Clogy,  Minister  of  Cavan. 
London,  1862. 


APPENDIX.  299 

then  restored  to  his  son-in-lavv-'s  house.  In  like  manner  Sir 
Pheliin  O'Neil  is  handed  down  by  history  as  the  murderer 
of  Lord  Caulfiekl,  his  neighbor  in  the  country,  and  friend  in 
Parliament.  Yot  he  treated  him  and  his  family  with  great 
care  when  he  surprised  the  fort  of  Charlemont,  on  the  23d 
of  October,  1641 ;  and  there  Lord  Caulfiekl  was  kept  until 
the  14th  of  January,  1642,  v/hen  he  was  sent  with  an  escort 
towards  Cloughouter  Castle,  by  a  similar  order,  (probably 
from  Kilkenny,)  to  that  which  brought  Bishop  Bedel  thither. 
They  were  to  rest  the  first  night  at  Sir  Phelim  O'N'eil's 
Manor  of  Kynard  (now  Calledon)  ;  but  as  Lord  Caulfield 
vras  entering  the  gate,  he  was  shot  in  the  back  by  Edmund 
O'Hugh,  a  foster-brother  of  Sir  Phelim,  and  thus  murdered 
in  the  absence  and  without  the  knowledge  of  Sir  Phelim. 
That  Sir  Phelim  had  no  part  in  this  murder  is  certain ;  for 
he  wa,s  sorely  distressed  at  it,  and  had  O'Hugh  committed 
to  Armagh  jail  for  trial  for  the  murder:  but  he  escaped; 
whereupon  Sir  Phelim  had  the  sentry  hanged  for  his  conniv- 
ance or  neglect." 


FEOUDE'S  FALSITIES. 

WHAT    THE    AUTHOR    OF  "  THE    CROMWELLIAN    SETTLEMESTT    OF 
IRELAND  "    SAYS    OF    THEM. 

[In  the  annexed  letters,  addressed  to  the  press  of  Ireland  and 
America,  by  Mr.  Prendergast,  author  of  ' '  The  CromweUian  Settle- 
ment of  Ireland,"  that  gentleman  convicts  Mr.  Froude  not  only  of 
circulating  historical  falsehoods  long  since  proved  to  be  such, — but 
even  of  suppressing  facts  Vv^hich  have  been  distinctly  brought  under 
his  (Mr.  Fronde's)  notice ;  in  order  to  present  to  his  readers  a  false 
and  distorted  view  of  the  action  of  the  English  (and  in  particular  of 
Cromvs^eU)  towards  the  Irish  people  and  their  clergy.  ] 

Sandymount,  Dublin,  Nov.  5,  1873. 
Sir, — Mr.  Froude,  I  believe,  is  lighting  a  fire  that  he  has 
little  conception  of.  Deep  as  our  hatred  has  hitherto  been, 
at  our  unparalleled  historic  wrongs,  it  is  as  nothing  to  the 
intense  detestation  we  shall  hereafter  hold  the  English  in. 
Though  the  vile  English  press  are  unwilling  to  commit 
themselves  to  the  support  of  Mr.  Fronde's  crusade  against 
the  exiled  Irish  vmtil  they  see  the  success  of  it,  it  is  easy  to 
perceive  how  they  sympathize  with  it,  and  how  gladly  they 
would  see  the  Americans  hate  us  as  deeply  as  they  do  them- 
selves. For,  in  truth,  the  self-imposed  mission  of  this  friend 
and  lover  of  Ireland  (God  save  us  from  our  English  lovers!) 
is  to  turn  the  Americans  against  us.  With  hypocritical  flat- 
tery he  pretends  to  seek  American  opinion.  "  We  ourselves 
are  at  our  wit's  eiid,"  he  says.  "  If  America  will  counsel 
England  what  to  do,  she  will  listen  gratefully.  And  if  a 
time  is  ever  to  come  when  Celt  and  Saxon  are  to  live  side 


APPENDIX,  301 

by  side  in  peace  and  in  quiet,  it  v/ill  be  when  America  tells 
tbe  Irish  that  they  must  depend  for  the  future  on  their  own 
industry."  America  has  become  the  Supreme  Court  of 
Appeal,  he  says,  witli  English  hypocrisy ;  and  he  asks 
their  judgment.  But  he  has  already  renounced  it!  Sup- 
pose America  should  say :  "  Try  our  Constitution ;  give 
Ireland  a  Federal  Union  ;  make  her  a  State  like  one  of  the 
States  of  our  Union."  Oh,  no  !  Even  if  that  be  necessary 
to  Ireland's  happiness,  England,  he  tells  them  beforehand, 
will  not  do  it.  "  She  will  not  commit  political  suicide  by 
any  measure  that  might  tend  to  sej)aration." 

What  he  wants,  then,  is  judgment  in  England's  favor,  and 
against  Ireland. 

His  language  is  that  of  the  hypocrite,  and  there  is 
poison  under  that  tongue.  A  more  calumnious  harangue 
than  his  lectures  cannot  be  conceived. 

He  admits  the  brutal  cruelties  of  the  English,  but  repre- 
sents them  as  called  forth  by  the  still  greater  crimes  of  the 
Irish.  Witness  his  approval  of  Cromwell's  massacre  of  the 
inhabitants  of  Drogheda,  together  with  the  flower  of  the 
English  veterans  fighting  under  the  King's  commission;  I 
leave  out  the  Irish  soldiery.  But  is  it  come  to  this,  that 
the  filling  of  ladies,  women,  girls,  and  innocent  children, 
which  was  the  sport  of  Cromwell's  soldiers  for  two  whole 
days,  is  to  be  approved  of  by  Englishmen  at  this  time  of 
day? 

He  (Mr.  Froude)  did  not  think  it  so  cruel  as  the  oppres- 
sion and  lawlessness  which  brought  misery  into  every  poor 
man's  cabin.  It  is  plain  he  knows  little  of  the  history  of  that 
time.  But  were  what  he  states  as  true  as  it  is  false,  would 
that  justify  such  a  deed  ? 

It  is  such  deeds  that  bring  English  power  to  be  hated 
and  finally  overthrown  everywhere.  This  very  massacre  of 
Cromwell's  works  at  this  day.    It  makes  us  loathe  the  name 


302  APPENDIX. 

of  Englisliman  as  the  incarnation  of  cruelty.  It  might 
teiTify  temporarily;  but  it  fixed  National  hatred  perpet- 
ually. 

Look  at  the  rebellion  of  1798.  The  English  intrusted  the 
Orangemen  with  the  bayonet,  and  that  favorite  instrument 
of  theirs  for  spreading  their  power — the  cat-o'-nine  tails. 
The  rebellion  was  put  down,  but  they  have  left  a  hatred 
that  will  never  be  put  down.  So  in  India,  in  the  late  mu- 
tiny. Their  floggings,  killings,  hangings,  burnings,  blowing 
away  from  guns,  have  left  such  hatreds  that  the  English 
there  live  in  anticipation  of  another  outbreak,  and  the 
wounds  made  in  1857  will  never  heal. 

Mr.  Froude  is  now  reopening  every  old  wound,  and  Eng- 
land may  perhaps  have  to  curse  the  day  when  the  cold- 
blooded hypocrite  was  born.  Listen  to  him  describing  his 
love  for  the  Irish.  "  They  either,"  he  says,  "  attract  strongly 
or  repel  strongly."  Him  they  attracted  !  During  the  last 
thirty  years  he  has  been  thrown  (that  is,  he  has  thrown  him- 
self) much  amongst  them.  He  has  spent  his  college  vaca- 
tions, when  a  young  man,  wandering  in  the  mountains. 
He  has  lived  in  peasants'  cabins  for  months  together.  He 
was  once  overtaken  by  illness  in  the  wilds  of  Mayo,  and  "  the 
poor  creatures,"  he  adds,  v/ith  English  contemptuousness, 
"  treated  me  with  a  tenderness  I  can  never  forget."  And 
well  this  viper  repays  their  kindness  by  slandering  the  na- 
tion ;  out-slandering,  indeed,  all  our  former  maligners — and 
that  is  no  easy  task. 

Who  made  this  man  our  judge  ?  He  seems  possessed  of  a 
devil  that  gives  him  a  supposed  dominion  over  Ireland. 
Ireland  has  put  money  into  his  purse.  In  his  ten  long  vol- 
umes, his  few  chajDters  on  Ireland  have  given  the  greatest 
charm  to  his  work.  The  subject,  though  old,  is  ever  new 
and  fresh,  like  the  people.  He  is  still  determined  to  make 
money  of  us.     But  now  he  advances  beyond  the  domain  of 


APPENDIX.  303 

j)ast  history ;  he  sets  himself  up  as  our  censor,  and  the 
guide  of  America  in  her  opinion  of  the  Irish. 

That  he  will  rue  his  conduct  I  have  no  doubt.  I  liave 
never  yet  seen  any  one  undertake  the  running  down  of  Ire- 
land that  did  not  bring  his  own  reputation  to  ruin.  The 
conscience  of  the  world  revolts  secretly  against  the  cruel  in- 
justice of  the  deed. 

But,  be  this  as  it  may,  Mr.  Froude  has  done  what  can 
never  be  undone. 

No  Irisliman  will  ever  rest  satisfied  till  he  is  freed  from 
the  misery  of  living  under  a  people  who,  though  they  know 
that  the  strongest  feature  in  the  character  of  the  Irish  is 
their  national  feeling,  yet  seek  to  depreciate  the  nation  with 
a  watchfulness  that  never  sleeps  and  a  malignity  that  never 
tires. 

The  reputation  this  man  has  acquired  as  a  historian 
only  serves  him  the  better  to  slander  the  Irish.  I  do  not 
believe  he  can  have  made  any  search  into  the  original 
sources  of  any  period  but  that  period  which  his  history 
treats  of.  If  he  has,  nothing  but  reckless  hatred  of  the  Irish 
could  induce  him  to  represent  them  as  cowards-^to  repre- 
sent 200,000  well-drilled  Irish,  under  Ormonde,  as  driven, 
like  chaff,  before  Cromwell  and  18,000  English  ! 

The  English  of  Ormonde's  army  refused  to  fight  as  com- 
rades with  the  Irish.  When  Cromwell  appeared  before  the 
walls  of  some  towns  held  for  the  King,  the  English  garri- 
sons opened  their  gates  and  gave  up  their  officers — their 
English  officers — to  be  hanged.  All  the  English  garrisons 
of  Munster  revolted  from  Ormonde  when  Cromwell  was  at  a 
distance,  and  kept  them  for  Cromwell  at  his  approach.  At 
Rathmines,  the  treachery  oi  some  of  the  English  regiments 
who  v/ent  over  to  Col.  Michael  Jones,  the  Parliamen- 
tarian Governor  of  Dublin,  in  the  middle  of  the  battle, 
helped    mainly  to    cause    Ormonde's    defeat.     The  Scottish 


30i  APPENDIX, 

Presbyterians,  another  part  of  Ormonde's  supposed  200,000 
men,  were  equally  indisposed  to  light  as  faitliful  comrades  of 
the  Irish.  And  the  troops  of  the  late  Catholic  Confederates, 
— little  else  but  a  sudden  levy  of  a  mass  of  peasants, — had 
no  heart  to  fight  under  commanders  of  English  blood  and 
interest,  though  Catholic  in  religion,  who  were  ready  to  be- 
tray the  cause  rather  than  it  should  become  a  national  con- 
flict, the  only  thing  that  could  have  rallied  the  Irish. 

The  Ulster  Irish,  called  "  the  Nunciotists,"  vv'^ere  the  only 
body  who  maintained  the  cause  of  Ireland  for  Ireland's  sake. 
Thus  the  discipline  of  these  troops  of  Ormonde  is  as  untrue 
as  the  numbers  stated  by  Mr.  Froude.  Let  us  pass,  then, 
from  this  slanderer's  charge  against  the  Irish  of  cowardice 
(and  let  all  Irishmen,  whether  their  coats  be  red  or  green, 
or  blue  or  black,  note  it),  to  the  equally  false  charge  he 
makes  asrainst  our  fathers  of  a  massacre.  The  Irish  Catho- 
lies,  it  seems,  rose  and  massacred  an  unarmed  crowd  of 
38,000  confiding  and  unsuspecting  Protestants !  "  The  valet 
that  helped  to  undress  his  master  over  night,  stood  with  a 
pike  by  his  bedside  in  the  morning."  This  sensational  draw- 
ing, v^dien  once  indulged  in  (and  Froude,  Macaulay,  and  Gar- 
lyle  have  all  sacrificed  truth  and  honesty  to  this  vicious 
taste),  overpowers  all  the  better  feelings. 

There  was  no  massacre.  It  was  not  a  rising  of  Catholics 
upon  Protestants,  but  of  an  oppressed  nation  against  their 
tyrants,  in  the  interest  of  their  rightful  King.  Mr,  Froude 
defends  us  from  the  charge  of  murdering  150,000.  On  the 
best  computation,  says  this  friend  of  the  Irish,  it  was  only 
38,000. 

' '  An  open  foe  may  prove  a  curse, 
But  a  pretended  friend  is  worse  !  " 

I  have,  in  the  Second  Edition  of  the  ''Cromwellian  Set- 
tlement," appealed  to  the  collection  of  outrages  and  murders 


APPENDIX.  305 

made  by  order  of  the  Englisli  House  of  Commons  in  Marcli, 
1642,  under  a  Royal  Commission,  composed  of  seven  de- 
spoiled Protestant  ministers,  for  the  purpose  of  damning  us 
all  to  posterity,  for  disproof  of  this  supposed  massacre. 
And  I  confidently  rest  the  case  upon  it.  I  have  read,  I 
thinkj  all  the  papers  of  the  time,  and  the  result  of  all  is  the 
same. 

But  enough  of  this.  The  lie  will  be  repeated — this  and 
a  thousand  daily  national  insults  will  be  our  fate — until  that 
which  happened  in  the  case  of  America  happens  in  Ireland. 
T  am  old  enough  to  remember  when  the  insultinsf  of  the 
Americans  (not  long  escai)ed  from  the  yoke)  was  nearly  as 
much  the  sport  of  the  English  as  taunting  the  Irish  (still 
under  it)  is  now.  But  from  the  time  of  the  success  of  the 
Americans  in  their  war  against  the  Mexicans,  it  ceased.  As 
soon  as  they  became  weak  again  (or  were  supposed  to  be 
weak),  during  the  late  civil  war,  the  insolence  and  brutality 
of  the  English  burst  forth  again.  Then  it  all  subsided  again 
when  the  Northern  States  were  victorious,  and  the  Englisli 
became  so  mean  as  to  submit  to  be  judged  by  the  three  ex 
'post  facto  rules  of  International  Law,  and  to  submit  to  an 
Award  by  Arbitrators,  in  order  to  cover  their  shame  in 
paying  that  fine  for  their  insolence  which  they  saw  the 
Americans  were  resolved  to  exact,  and  these  once  proud 
English  did  not  dare  to  refuse. 

As  soon  as  the  Irish  are  feared,  they  will  be  honored  by 
this  bruta],  this  repulsive  people. — Your  obedient  servant, 

John  P.  Pre^^dergast. 


Sandymount,  Dublin,  Yltli  Nov.^  1872, 

Sir, — Some  persons  may  think  the  language  of  my  letter 

of  the  5th  of  this  month,  concerning  Mr.  Eroude,  too  strong. 

Perhaps  the}^  will  deem  it  too  weak,  as  I  do,  when  they  have 

read  his  book  called  "The  English  in  Ireland  in  the  Eigh- 


306  APPENDIX, 

teentli  Century."  At  tlie  time  I  wrote  I  had  only  seen  tlie 
account  of  his  speech  at  Delmonico's,  upon  his  reception,  and 
the  abstract  of  his  first  lecture.  Since  I  have  read  his  book 
I  would  wish  to  alter  one  phrase.  I  would  withdraw  the 
term  "  Cold-blooded  hypocrite,"  and  substitute  *'  Blood- 
thirsty fanatic."  His  lectures  give  no  measure  of  the  malig- 
nity of  his  book.  The  man  seems  to  be  absolutely  possessed, 
filled  with  demoniac  hate.  There  is  nothing  in  the  world 
like  his  present  efibrt  except  Peter  the  Hermit's  preaching 
the  Crusade.  His  thirst  for  the  destruction  of  the  Irish  is 
only  equalled  by  the  zeal  of  the  Crvisaders  against  the  Infi- 
dels. If  he  could,  he  v.^ould  raise  against  the  Irish  the  cry 
of  "  Hep !  Hep !  "  to  which  thousands  of  Jews  throughout 
Europe  were  massacred.  He  aims  at  agitating  and  rousing 
both  Endand  and  America  a(:rainst  us.  He  has  laid  the 
fuel  here  for  rebellion  and  civil  war,  and  he  then  crosses 
the  Atlantic  to  secure,  if  he  can,  the  assistance  of  America 
towards  our  subjection.  Their  acquiescence  is  all  he  asks. 
"  It  will  be  worth  twenty  batteries  of  cannon  to  the  Eng- 
lish," he  says.  If  this  is  not  his  purport,  words  have  no 
meaning.  No  Southern  planter,  infuriated  at  the  prospect 
of  his  slaves  acquiring  their  freedom,  or  the  Spartans,  mad- 
dened at  the  resistance  of  the  helots,  can  be  more  demon- 
like than  this  Froude.  "  Cromwell !  "  <'  Cromwell !  "  ''  Crom- 
Avell !  "  is  the  beginning,  middle,  and  ending  of  his  book,  his 
dream,  his  aspiration.  "  Leave  them  to  us  !  oh,  leave  the 
Irish  to  our  tender  mercies,  and  the  world  shall  see  Crom- 
weliian  rule  re-established  in  that  accursed  land!"  This  is 
his  prayer.  It  is  the  old  story  of  the  Spartans  seeking  and 
getting  the  aid  of  the  Athenians  to  keep  the  helots  of  Sparta 
in  subjection.  Twice  did  Athens  help  Sparta  to  bring  back 
the  helots  under  the  Spartan  cat-o'-nine-tails.  And  well 
w-as  Athens  repaid,  when  some  years  later  Sparta  reduced 
the  Athenians  to  slavery,  and  the  Spartan  army  surrounded 


APPENDIX.  307 

Atliens  Yvitli  bands  of  music  playing,  for  greater  trinmpli 
to  tliemselves  and  indignity  to  her,  while  they  forced  her 
own  sons  to  take  do\vn  the  city  walls.     They  even  talked 
of  sowing  the  ground  where  the  city  stood  with  salt !     It 
remains  to  be  seen  what  course  the  Americans  will  take. 
Let  no  one  deem  my  language  too  heated  till  they  have  read 
Froude's  book.     If  I  mistake  not,  it  will  be  translated  into 
many  languages.     I  trust  it  may.     The  world  will  then  begin 
to  form  some  notion  of  the  character  of  the  race  the  Irish 
have  had  to  deal  with.     I  shall   fearlessly  await  the  judg- 
ment of  mankind.     His  book  smells  of  blood.     Every  hor- 
rible dream  of  the  enraged,  the  terrified  English  of  1641  is 
reproduced  under  pretence  of  an  answer  to  my  defence  of 
the  Irish  against  the  false  charge  of  the  stupendous  massacre 
of  300,000  or  38,000  Protestants,  or  less,  as  this  kind  friend 
and  lover  of  the   Irish  suggests,  by  the  Papists.     The  one 
number  is  as  false  as  the  other.     It  is  nothing  to  the  pur- 
pose (as  an  answer)  to  show  that  at  Portadov>^n  numbers  of 
Protestants,  varying,  according  to  different  accounts,  from 
GO  to  200,  were  butchered  in  December,  1641,  or  that  mauy 
were  massacred  in  the  same  month  at  Lisgool  Castle,  in  the 
county  of  Fermanagh.      The  latter  was  a   siege;   those  at 
Portadown  were  prisoners.     The  war  of  "no  quarter,"  on 
the  part  of  the  English,  had  begun. 

The  killing  of  women  and  children  by  the  Irish,  where 
true,  is  horrible  (in  many  instances  the  reports  are  perfectly 
false),  but  it  is  far  less  horrible  than  the  same  crime  author- 
ized by  Sir  Charles  Coote  and  other  English  commanders 
in  this  war,  as  in  the  wars  of  Elizabeth's  day,  mentioned  by 
Froude  himself.  Bat  be  the  stories  against  the  Irish  in 
this  respect  true  or  false,  it  is  no  ansv/er  to  my  denial  oi 
the  appalling  account  of  the  massacre,  miless  it  were  of  num- 
bers, amounting  to  thousands,  which  is  not  pretended.     But 


308  APPENDIX, 

it  serves  Mr.  Froucle's  jmrpose  of  spreading  war  and  blood 
again. 

I  remember  well,  the  first  time  I  appeared  in  the  Four 
Courts  Library  after  publishing  the  "Cromwellian  Settle- 
ment," that  one  of  her  Majesty's  counsel  addressed  me, 
"Why,  Prendergast,  I  hear  you  deny  tlie  Irlslb  rebellion  of 
1G41 ! "  Much  of  Mr.  Fronde's  parade  of  murders  is  about 
as  little  to  the  point  as  my  learned  friend's  idea  of  my  argu- 
ment— • 

' '  Whose  notions  fitted  things  so  well, 
That  which  v/as  which  he  could  not  tell, 
But  of teutimes  mistook  the  one, 
For  t'other,  as  great  clerks  have  done." 

Mr.  Froude,  however,  is  not  so  stupid.  He  knows  well 
enough  that  the  question  is,  "V7as  there  a  massacre  in 
Ulster,  of  thousands,  at  or  shortly  after  the  outbreak  of  23d 
of  October,  1641?"  It  is  remarkable  that,  often  as  the 
Irish  had  before  been  forced  into  rebellion  or  war,  no  such 
national  crime  was  ever  alleged  against  them.  Mr.  Froude 
makes  the  priests  and  the  Catholic  religion  to  be  at  the  root 
of  the  massacre.  He  has  been  to  the  returns  of  the  Com- 
mission of  the  seven  despoiled  ministers,  made  in  March, 
1642,  for  inflaming  the  English  of  that  day,  and  reproduced 
now  by  Mr.  Froude  for  the  same  purpose  at  this  day.  From 
thence  he  takes  Bishop  Jones's  tale  of  a  great  meeting  of 
monks  at  Multifarnam  Abbey,  in  the  county  of  Y/estmeath, 
where  the  project  of  a  massacre  was  said  to  be  debated. 
The  tale  is  that  of  an  informer,  incredible  to  those  who 
know  the  history  of  that  time,  and  are  familiar  v/ith  the 
tales  that  were  then  coined  and  credited,  or  pretended  to  he 
credited.  But,  says  Mr.  Froude,  the  Irish  priests  themselves 
admitted  that  150,000  Protestants  had  been  murdered  by 
their  Popish  parishioners.     Froude,  in  his  kind  feeling  for 


APPENDIX.  309 

the  Iris.li  ivli07ii  he  so  loves,  does  not  believe  in  the  numbers : 
be  believes  in  38,000  or  even  less,  and  finally  says  that  the 
mind  was  incapable  of  making  any  rational  computation 
because  of  the  terror,  but  that  the  numbers  were  enormous ; 
and  the  priests  had  themselves  to  blame  for  being  the 
authors  of  this  frightful  tale.  But  suppose  it  should  turn 
out  that  English  Protestants  and  not  Irish  priests  were  the 
authors  of  this  150,000  Protestants  massacred?  Well,  the 
tale  will  still  pass  current  under  Mr.  Fronde's  brilliant 
painting,  and  the  efforts  of  the  poor  defender  of  the  defamed 
Irish  and  their  priesthood  will  not  be  regarded  or  even 
heard.  Now,  what  is  the  foundation  of  this  tale?  A 
passionate  friar  named  O'Mahony  urged  the  native  Irish 
to  continue  the  war  with  the  English  rather  than  accept 
the  peace  (afterwards  known  as  the  peace  of  '46)  on  terms 
he  deemed  derogatory  and  ruinous.  Those  terms  their 
Catholic  leaders,  of  English  blood,  were  determined  to  ac- 
cept, and  they  caused  O'Mahony's  book,  called  "  Disputatio 
Apologetica,"  printed  in  Latin  at  Frankfort,  in  Germany, 
to  be  publicly  burnt.  "  Fight  on,"  said  O'Mahony  ;  "  you 
have  already  slain  150,000  of  your  enemies,  the  heretics 
[i.e.  English],  in  these  foui"  or  five  years,  since  1641  to  the 
time  of  my  wi^iting  this  work,  in  this  present  year,  1645. 
Your  foes  have  publicly  proclaimed  it  in  their  printed 
declarations ;  jou  yourselves  do  not  dispute  the  fact,  and 
as  for  myself,  I  believe  they  have  lost  even  more.  I  only 
wish  we  could  say,  alV^  There  is  no  need  of  wasting  time 
in  comment  on  this  piece  of  evidence.  It  is  a  sample  of 
the  kind  of  proofs  used  in  every  part  of  this  controversy. 

Sir  John  Temple  is  another  wi1|beS8  of  Mr.  Froude's. 
"Sir  John  Temple,"  he  says,  "considered  that  150,000 
perished  in  two  months  (that  is,  by  the  end  of  December, 
1641)  and  300,000  in  two  years."  This  is  from  his  "  Irish 
Rebellion,"  a  book  pablished  in  1646,  for  the  purpose  of  pre- 


310  APPENDIX, 

venting  the  peace  then  on  the  point  of  being  signed,  and  to 
hinder  any  peace  at  any  future  time  between  the  English 
and  Irish,  as  Sir  John  Temple  expressly  declares.  Yet  Sir 
John's  own  letter  of  12tk  December,  1641,  to  the  King, 
given  by  Mr.  Froude,  because  he  thinks  it  will  lead  ordinary 
readers  to  accept  it  as  proof  of  the  astounding  massacre, 
proves  the  contrary.  He  prints  the  passage  he  relies  on 
in  italics.  It  is  this  : — ''  Many  thousands  of  our  nation  are 
already  perished  "  (page  105  in  note).  Is  this  proof  of  a 
massacre?  Does  it  not  even  contradict  the  statement  in 
his  book  of  150,000  being  dead  at  this  time,  not  by  mas- 
sacre, but  through  fatigue,  famine,  disease,  and  in  other  ways. 
But  what  are  all  these  horrors,  supposing  them  to  be 
true,  to  the  acts  done  by  the  orders  of  legitimate  authority  ? 
The  manner  of  English  war  in  Ireland  has  ever  been  to 
massacre  women  and  children. 

"  My  manner  of  dealing  "  (says  Sir  Henry  Gilbert)  "  was, 
I  slew  all  those  from  time  to  time  that  did  belong  to,  feed, 
accompany,  or  maintain  any  outlaws  or  traitors,  and  after 
summoning  any  fort  or  castle,  if  they  did  not  immediately 
yield  it,  I  vfould  not  afterwards  take  their  surrender,  but 
won  it  perforce,  how  many  lives  soever  it  cost,  putting  man^ 
woman,  and  child  of  them  to  the  sivord/  being  of  opinion  that 
no  conquered  nation  will  ever  yield  willingly  their  obedience 
for  love,  but  rather  for  fear." 

This  is  from  Mr.  Fronde's  "Elizabeth,"  10th  volume,  page 
507.     The  year  is  1569. 

Are  the  acts  of  Irish  j)easants  at  all  equal  in  atrocity  to 
the  murders  done  by  order  of  the  Parliament  of  England 
(only  that  "  Parliament  can  do  no  wrong  "),  in  drowning 
the  King's  Protestant  soldiers,  taken  at  sea  coming  at  the 
King's  orders  to  his  aid  in  England  ?  If  they  were  Irish, 
even  though  Protestants  and  valiant  servitors  against  the 
Confederate  Catholics,  they  were  to  be  thrown  overboard; 
and    70    soldiers    of    Colonel    Willoughby's    regiment,    all 


APPENDIX.  311 

Protestants,  and  many  women,  being  taken  by  a  Parliamem: 
sLip  on  their  passage  to  Bristol  in  1644,  were  so  dealt  with 
(Proclamation  of  the  Supreme  Council  of  Confederate  Cath- 
olics, July  6,  1G44  ;  Carte  Papers,  vol.  xi.,  Public  Kecord 
Office,  Ireland).  I  should  not  venture  to  offer  any  Catholic 
document  for  proof  (for  it  would  not  be  believed  by  Mr. 
Froude),  only  that  the  fact  is  confirmed  by  the  correspond- 
ence of  Protestants  who,  of  course,  never  tell  lies  (though 
Mr.  Froude  himself  admits  the  magnifying  38,000  or  less 
into  150,000),  and  that  the  fact  is  confirmed  by  the  Marquis 
of  Ormonde  and  the  public  and  2:»ri\'ate  correspondence  of  the 
day.  The  English  made  a  boast  of  it.  Captain  SAvanley  (honor 
to  the  English  navy  !)  tied  the  men  in  pairs,  back  to  back, 
and  flung  them  into  the  sea  at  Milford  Haven.  The  weekly 
papers  were  merry  over  it.  One  said,  "  that  Captain  Swan- 
ley  took  six  score  "  (they  swelled  the  butchers'  bill  to  make 
it  more  delightful  to  the  English  taste  for  blood)  "  English- 
Irish  and  sent  them  a-fishing  to  the  bottom  of  the  sea." 
Another  said  "  that  Captain  Swanley  made  those  Irish 
drink  their  bellies'  full  of  salt  water."  Another  "that 
Captain  Swanley  made  those  who  would  not  take  the  Cove- 
nant take  the  water  with  their  heads  downward."  Another, 
"  that  the  Captain  made  trial  if  an  Irish  cavalier  could  swim 
without  hands."  (Mercurius  Aulicus  for  May  16,  1644,  p. 
983.)  '  And  Captain  Swanley  received  the  thanks  of  Parlia- 
ment and  a  chain  of  gold  worth  200^. 

There  is  here  no  mention  of  women,  though  they  may 
have  been  drowned.  For,  after  the  defeat  of  the  king  at 
Naseby,  more  than  100  women,  some  of  them  the  wives  of 
English  Iloyalist  officers,  were  cut  to  pieces  ;  and  the  excuse 
was,  that  they  were  believed  to  be  Irishwomen,  wives  and 
followers  of  soldiers  of  the  King's  Irish  army.  But  there  is 
no  time,  no  need  for  multiplying  instances.  I  must  pass  to 
the  massacre  at  Drogheda  hy  Cromwell : — 


312  APPENDIX. 

"  The  Irish  histories  say  "  (says  Mr,  Froucle)  ''  that  there 
was  an  indiscriminate  massacre  of  men,  women,  and  chil- 
dren. Cromwell's  own  account"  (he  continues)  "mentions 
only  men  in  arms,  and  priests,  who,  as  having  been  the  insti- 
gators of  the  worst  crimes,  Avere  held  less  innocent  than 
those  who  had  committed  them.  It  is  possible,  he  adds, 
that  in  such  a  scene  women  and  children  may  have  been 
accidentally  killed ;  but  there  is  no  evidence  of  it  from  an 
eye-witness,  and  only  general  rumors  and  reports  at  seconcl- 
hand.  Of  authentic  evidence,"  (he  continues,)  "  in  addi- 
tion to  Cromwell,  two  letters,  one  of  them  from  a  Koyalist, 
disprove  conclusively  the  story  of  a  general  massacre.  A 
printed  official  list  of  the  officers  and  soldiers  slain  at  the 
storuaing  of  Drogheda,  supplied  to  the  Parliament,  brings 
the  number  to  nearly  3,000,  besides  many  inhabitants. 
These  citizens  "^"^  (says  Mr.  Froude)  '■^fought  by  the  side  of 
the  troops  and  sliared  their  fate.''''  ("  English  in  Ireland  in 
the  Eighteenth  Century,"  p.  124,  note.) 

The  proofs,  however,  of  a  general  massacre  are  only  too 
numerous  to  quote.  The  Marquis  of  Ormonde,  in  the  same 
work,  says,  ''  Cromwell  outdid  himself,"  that  it  recalled  the 
"  massacre  and  tortures  of  the  early  Christians,  and  the 
cruelties  of  Auiboyna."  I  never  heard  it  disputed  by  any 
one  who  had  read  history,  except  Carlyle,  Mr.  Froude's 
model.  The  great  question  in  dispute  is,  "  Did  they  massa- 
cre after  promising  quarter  ?  "  He  says  there  is  iio  evidence 
of  any  massacring  of  women  and  children  from  an  eye-wit- 
ness. So  far  is  this  from  the  truth,  that  there  is  an  account 
by  an  eye-witness  and  actor  in  no  less  common  a  book — a 
book  in  constant  use,  namely,  in  Anthony  Wood's  "  Athe- 
ns© Oxonienses."  The  account  is  to  be  found  in  the  auto- 
biography of  Anthony  Wood,  given  in  the  preface  to  Bliss'.') 
edition  of  the  "  Athense,"  in  four  volumes  quarto.  Anthony 
Wood's  eldest  brother,  Thomas  Wood,  Master  of  .Irts  of  the 
University  of  Oxford,  was  a  captain  in  Colonel  Henry  In- 
goldsby's  troop  at  the  siege  of  Drogheda,  "  and  returned  " 


APPENDIX.  313 

(says  Anthony  Wood)  "from  Ireland  to  Oxford  for  a  time  to 
take  up  the  arrears  of  his  studentship  at  Christ  Church." 
It  was  the  winter  after  the  siege.  "  At  which  time,  being 
often  with  his  mother  and  brethren,"  says  Anthony  Wood, 
"  he  was  wont  in  the  winter  evenings  to  tell  them  of  the 
most  terrible  assaulting  and  storming  of  Drogheda,  wherein 
he  himself  had  been  engaged."  He  told  them,  continues 
Anthony,  "  that  3,000  at  least,  besides  women  and  children, 
were,  after  the  assailants  had  taken  the  town,  put  to  the 
sword  on  the  11th  and  12th  of  September,  1649."  He 
told  them  "  that  when  they  (the  soldiery)  were  to  make  their 
way  up  to  the  lofts  and  galleries  in  churches,  and  up  to  the 
towers  whither  the  enemy  had  fled,  each  of  the  assailants 
would  take  up  a  child  and  use  it  as  a  buckler  of  defence  as 
they  mounted  the  steps  to  keep  themselves  from  being  shot 
or  brained.  After  they  had  killed  all  in  the  Church  of  St. 
Laurence,  they  went  into  the  vaults  underneath,  where  all 
the  flower  and  choicest  of  the  women  and  ladies  had  hid 
the«aselves.  One  of  these,"  he  continues,  "  a  most  hand- 
some virgin,  arrayed  in  costly  and  gorgeous  apparel,  kneeled 
down  to  Xhomas  Wood  with  tears  and  prayers  to  save  her 
life  ;  and  he  being  struck  with  a  profound  pity,  took  her 
under  his  arm  and  went  out  of  the  church  with  intentions  to 
let  her  shift  for  herself,  but  a  soldier  perceiving  his  inten- 
tions, thrust  his  sword  up  her  fundament."  (Reason  will 
be  shown  before  I  have  done  for  using  Anthony  Wood's 
dreadful  language.)  What  (it  will  be  said)  must  have  been 
Captain  Thomas  Wood's  horror  to  find  this  beautiful,  trem- 
bling creature,  who  trusted  to  his  protecting  arm,  thus  cruel- 
ly and  inhumanly  butchered  by  this  brute  of  an  Englishman, 
as  she  leaned  upon  him  while  getting  up  the  steps  of  the 
vault  ?  Of  course  he  struck  him,  in  horror  and  disgust, 
with  the  flat,  if  not  with  the  edge,  of  his  sword  ?  Hear 
Anthony   Wood's   account  of  what   his   brother  told  him. 


314  APPENDIX. 

""Whereupon  Captain  Wood,  seeing  lier  gasping,  took  lier 
money,  jewels,  etc.,  and  flung  her  down  over  the  works!" 
In  other  words,  this  English  officer  and  gentleman,  and  Mas- 
ter of  Arts  of  the  University  of  Oxford,  turned  upon  this 
}>oor  tortured  creature,  robbed  her,  and  flung  her  alive,  over 
the  walls  of  Drogheda!  But  "those  citizens  of  Drogheda 
fighting  beside  the  troops  necessarily  shared  the  fate  of  the 
Irish  soldiery."  "  It  is  possible  that  in  such  a  scene  women 
and  children  may  have  been  accidentally  killed !  "  Y/as 
this  lovely  girl,  whose  beauty  and  elegance  disarmed  even 
her  furious  conqueror,  accidentally  killed  ?  Was  the  trem- 
bling crowd  of  terrified  ladies  of  the  best  quality,  that,  like  a 
herd  of  hunted  deer,  had  sought  shelter  in  the  vaults  under 
St.  Laurence's  church,  and  were  there  massacred — were 
these  ladies  and  their  children  citizens  fiorhting  beside  the 
troops  ? 

"  There  is  no  evidence  of  an  indiscriminate  massacre  of 
men,  women,  and  children  from  an  eye-witness,  only  general 
rumors  and  reports  at  second  hand."  Is  not  Captain 
Thomas  Wood's  account  the  account  of  an  eye-witness  ? 
And  are  the  cotemporaneous  printed  letters  of  the  Marquis 
of  Ormonde  to  the  King  mere  general  rumor  and  rej)ort  at 
second-hand?  But  what  will  be  thought  of  Mr.  Froude's 
candor  and  conscientiousness  when  it  is  known  that  he  had 
in  his  hands,  at  the  time  of  publishing  his  book,  the  evi- 
dence of  Captain  Thomas  Wood  and  the  letter  of  the  Mar- 
quis of  Ormonde,  extracted  in  handwriting?  For  Mr. 
Froude  having  written  to  a  friend  of  mine  to  know  if  there 
was  anything  beyond  Irish  rumor  for  the  story  of  a  general 
massacre,  my  friend  sent  the  letter  to  me  at  Oxford,  whence 
I  furnished  him  with  the  extracts,  and  they  were  by  him 
sent  to  Mr.  Froude.  I  had  quite  forgotten  it  till  after  I  had 
written  the  gi-eater  part  of  this  letter.  His  high  commen- 
dation is  given  to  this  massacre ;  for  he  not  only  adopts  the 


APPENDIX.  315 

language  of  his  hero,  but  glories  in  the  deed,  and  vaunts  it 
at  this  hour.  "I  am  persuaded,"  wrote  Cromwell  (it  is 
from  Froude  I  quote),  "  that  it  is  a  judgment  of  God  upon 
these  wretches  who  have  imbrued  their  hands  in  so  much 
innocent  blood,  and  that  it  will  tend  to  prevent  the  effusion 
of  blood  for  the  future,  which  are  satisfactory  grounds  for 
such  actions,  which  otherwise  could  not  but  work  much  re- 
morse and  regret."  How  utterly  mistaken  this  infallible 
hero  of  Mr.  Froude  was,  the  tenor  of  Mr.  Froude's  whole 
book  is  enough  to  show.        ********* 

There  is  not  time  nor  space  to  show  the  reckless  audacity 
of  his  statements  of  the  prosperity  he  supposes  to  have  fol- 
lowed Cromwell's  rule  in  Ireland  during  that  tyrant's  life- 
time. The  whole  is  an  argument  for  the  restoration  of  the 
naked  sword  as  the  sole  instrument  of  English  rule  in  Ire- 
land. The  book,  I  say  again,  smells  of  gore,  as  if  he  were 
athirst  for  Irish  blood.       ********* 

Mr.  Froude,  in  denying  the  massacre  of  women  and  chil- 
dren (with  what  truth  and  candor  may  be  now  left  to  the 
judgment  of  the  unprejudiced),  relies  upon  Cromwell's  state- 
ment as  mentioning  among  the  slain  only  men  in  arms  and 
priests.  These  Mr.  Froude  boldly  states  to  have  been  the 
instigators  of  the  worst  crimes,  and  as  less  innocent  than 
those  that  committed  them,  to  have  been  justly  massacred. 
That  Mr.  Froude  will  find  plenty  of  charges  against  priests 
of  having  committed  atrocities  in  the  rebellion  of  1G41,  I 
know.  I  have  read  more  of  their  crimes  ia  this  rebellion, 
or  war,  than  most  men  ;  far  more  than  Mr.  Froude  ever  has 
read,  or  will  read.  I  am  not  of  their  religion ;  but  this  I  can 
say,  that  I  have  never,  to  my  recollection,  found  any  of  these 
charges  substantiated.  The  more  horrible  the  details  of  the 
imputed  crime,  the  more  quickly  is  the  judgment  made  cap- 
tive through  the  imagination ;  though  the  opposite  ought  to 
be  the  course.  Yet,  often  have  I  found  some  terrible  impu- 
tation against  priests  end  in  an  act  of  benevolence,  carefully 


316  APPENDIX. 

ecreened  by  tlieir  adversaries  beliind  a  mass  of  horrid  imput- 
ed details  that  are  left  imbedded,  as  it  were,  in  the  memory, 
the  good  deed  so  hid  as  to  be  forgotten.  Let  any  one  in 
search  of  instances  read  the  lately  published  Life  of  "  Bishop 
Bedel,"  by  Alexander  Clogy,  the  bishop's  son-in-lav/,  com- 
panion of  his  father-in-law  in  his  so-called  imprisonment, 
and  the  account  wiitten  by  Bedel's  son,  only  published 
within  the  past  year.  I  am  probably,  in  this,  doing  a  disser- 
vice to  these  ecclesiastics,  for  every  vile  imputation  will  be 
caught  \\^  to  be  repeated,  their  good  deeds  kept  back. 

This  leads  me  naturally  to  a  subject  connected  witli  the 
treatment  of  the  Irish  priesthood  by  the  English  at  a  later 
period,  that  can  scarcely  be  handled  without  indelicacy. 
But  I  have  made  a  covenant  with  myself  that  I  will  for  the 
future  be  deterred  by  no  personal  considerations,  by  no  mis- 
placed modesty,  in  this  great  conflict  with  the  tyrants  and 
maligners  of  Ireland  and  the  Irish.  For  have  they  not  sent 
forth  their  standard-bearer  (unless  it  be  true  that  he  has 
gone  forth  of  his  own  demoniac  design,  as  he  says,)  to  the 
ends  of  the  world  to  rouse  the  English  race  against  us  ?  Last 
year,  when  I  had  occasion  to  treat  of  Cromwell's  massacre  at 
Drogheda,  modesty  made  me  suppress  the  gross  language  of 
Anthony  Wood  in  giving  an  account  of  the  death  of  the  tort- 
ured, murdered  virgin.  His  plainer,  coarser  terms  leave  a 
never-to-be-forgotten  image.  I  should  hesitate  now  to  touch 
what  I  must  treat  in  plain  language  but  for  the  necessity  of 
the  case,  and  because  Mr.  Eroude  has  ali'eady  done  so.  I  now 
proceed.  It  is  two  or  three  years  since  I  was  applied  to  to 
know  what  authority  there  was  for  the  story  related  by 
^Plowden,  that  the  same  penalty  that  was  inflicted  on  Abe- 
lard,  had,  in  the  year  1723,  been  actually  decreed  by  both 
Houses  of  Parliament  in  Ireland  (so  far  as  their  limited 
power  enabled  them)  against  every  priest  in  Ireland  who 
should  not  quit  his  country  by  a  certain  day.     For  many 


APPENDIX.  317 

years  I  had  searched  in  vain.  I  remember  consulting 
Coxe's  "  Life  of  Walpole,"  as  he  was  said  by  Plowden  to 
have  stopped  the  bill  at  the  intercession  of  Cardinal  Fleury. 
It  was  stated  by  Plowden  that  the  Commons  presented  the 
bill  to  the  Lord  Lieutenant  (the  Duke  of  Grafton)  on  the 
15th  of  November,  at  the  Castle,  and  that  they  most  ear- 
nestly requested  his  Grace  to  recommend  the  same  in  the 
most  effectual  manner,  to  his  Majesty's  goodness,  and  that 
by  his  Grace's  "  zeal  for  the  Protestant  interest  the  same 
might  be  permitted  to  pass  into  a  law."  As  the  public  rec- 
ords have  now  been  thrown  open  to  the  public  by  the  in- 
tervention of  Lord  Romilly,  the  Master  of  the  Polls,  so  that 
what  was  previously  accessible  only  at  an  enormous  cost,  and 
in  many  cases  not  at  all,  I  determined  to  ascertain,  if  possi- 
ble, the  truth.  Taking  up  the  printed  journals  of  the  House 
of  Commons  of  the  year  1723,  I  found  that  a  bill  "  To  Pre- 
vent the  Further  Growth  of  Popery"  had  passed  through  all 
its  stages,  and  that  it  was  agreed  that  the  Speaker,  with  the 
House,  should  attend  the  Lord  Lieutenant  and  desire  it 
might  be  transmitted  to  England,  and  effectually  recom- 
mended by  the  Lord  Lieutenant  to  be  allowed  to  pass  into  a 
law,  just  as  stated  by  Plowden.  I  forthwith  (it  was  on  the 
23d  February,  1869)  proceeded  to  the  Parliamentary  Rec- 
ords, then  under  the  care  of  Sir  Bernard  Burke,  the  keeper 
of  State  papers  (they  have  since  been  removed  to  the  public 
record  office),  and  after  some  search  among  the  draughts  of 
Heads  of  Bills,  I  found  the  paper  wanted.  It  was  what 
lawyers  call,  in  the  case  of  depositions  taken  in  Chancery, 
the  "  dominical " — that  is  to  say,  the  rough  original  manu- 
script of  the  bill  on  paper,  in  the  form  of  a  barrister's 
brief.  It  was  interlined,  passages  roughly  scored  out, 
and  slips  of  paper  containing  stringent  provisions  were 
attached  by  black  and  red  wafers  here  and  there  to  the  mar- 
gin.    Among    the    many   provisions   against    unregistered 


318  APPENDIX. 

priests,  there  was  one  making  it  death,  without  benefit  of 
clergy,  with  forfeiture  of  lands  and  goods  as  in  high  treason, 
for  any  one  to  give  a  mouthful  of  bread  or  a  glass  of  water 
to  any  unregistered  bishop,  priest,  or  monk  returning  into 
Ireland  after  he  had  once  been  banished ! 

There  were  also  heavy  penalties  against  unregistered 
priests  saying  Mass.  Several  persons  had  on  examinations 
before  justices  of  the  peace,  says  the  preamble,  confessed  that 
they  had  heard  JNIass  by  priests  suspected  to  be  unregistered, 
yet  by  the  arts  and  contrivances  of  the  priests,  who  fre- 
quently had  a  curtain  drawn  between  them  and  their  con- 
gregation, no  discovery  could  be  made  of  the  person  saying 
Mass,  that  it  might  appear  whether  he  was  duly  qualified  to 
say  Mass.  For  the  future,  therefore,  the  officiating  priest 
was  to  appear  with  his  face  bare,  under  heavy  penalties,  and 
the  door  of  every  chapel  was  to  be  kept  open,  that  the 
Cromwellian  squireen  riding  by  might  see  the  priest's  face. 
If  found  shut,  the  chapel  was  to  be  shut  up  forever,  and  all 
persons  present  to  be  heavily  fined.  But  I  in  vain  looked 
for  the  enactment  recorded  by  Plowden.  I  accordingly 
made  a  return  to  my  inquirers  that  I  was  now  satisfied,  as  I 
had  long  before  suspected,  that  it  was  an  invented  tale. 
Just  two  years  after,  however,  happening  to  take  up  a  vol- 
ume in  manuscript  containing  entries  of  the  letters  of  the 
Lord  Lieutenant  and  Council  for  the  year  1719,  amongst  the 
papers  in  the  State  Paper  Department  in  Dublin  Castle,  I 
found  that  the  whole  v»^as  perfectly  correct  as  stated  by 
Plowden,  except  in  two  particulars,  one  that  he  had  mis- 
taken the  year,  the  other  that  he  supposed  the  joenalty  to  be 
general  for  all  priests,  instead  of  being  confined  to  unregis- 
tered priests.     The  following  is  the  letter  referred  to : — 

"Council  Chamber,  Dublin  Castle, 
'' 21th  of  August,  in^. 

"  My  Lords — We  herewith  transmit  to  your  Excellencies 


APPENDIX.  319 

tlie  following  bill : — ^  An  Act  for  Securing  the  Protestant 
Int(,'rest  of  this  Kingdom  by  further  amending  the  several 
Acts  of  Parliament  made  against  Papists,  and  to  Prevent  the 
Gro^vth  of  Popery.'  The  heads  of  this  bill  arose  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  who,  being  sensible  (as  the  truth  is) 
that  there  are  now  more  unregistered  Priests  and  Popish 
Archbishops,  Bishops,  Jesuits,  Priars,  and  others  exercising 
foreign  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction  in  this  kiugdom  than  ever 
heretofore,  notwithstanding  the  many  laws  against  the  same, 
found  it  impossible  to  prevent  that  evil  otherwise  than  by 
subjecting  persons  who  should  be  convicted  of  being  unregis- 
tered Popish  Priests,  Popish  Archbishops,  &c.,  to  greater 
penalties  than  those  they  v/ere  liable  to  by  the  former  acts. 
After  the  country  had  paid  a  sum  of  twenty  pounds  to  the 
discoverer  of  every  such  offender,  and  been  at  great  expense 
in  prosecuting  and  convicting  them  of  the  oiience,  they  are 
only  liable  to  transportation,  unless  they  return  after  being 
transported,  but  for  so  doing  are  punishable  with  death. 
Priests,  Friars,  &c.,  are  no  sooner  transported  but  new  ones 
come  over  from  Prance,  Spain,  or  Portugal,  so  that  their 
number  continues  as  great  as  ever.  The  common  Irish  will 
never  become  Protestant  or  well  affected  to  the  Crown  while 
they  are  supplied  with  priests,  friars,  &c.,  who  are  the  foment- 
ers  and  disturbers  here.  So  that  some  more  effectual  rem- 
edy to  prevent  priests  and  friars  coming  into  this  kingdom 
is  perfectly  necessary.  The  Commons  proposed  the  marking 
of  every  person  who  shall  be  convicted  of  being  an  unregis- 
tered priest,  friar,  &c.,  and  of  remaining  in  this  kingdom 
after  the  1st  of  May,  1720,  with  a  large  P,  to  be  made  with 
a  red-hot  iron  on  the  cheek.  The  Council  generally  disliked 
that  punisliment,  and  have  altered  it  into  that  of  castration, 
which  they  are  persuaded  will  be  the  most  effectual  remedy 
that  can  be  found  out  to  clear  the  nation  of  those  disturbers 
of  the  peace  and  quiet  of  the  kingdom,  and  would  have  been 
very  well  pleased  to  have  been  able  to  have  found  out  any 
other  punishment  v/hich  might  in  their  opinion  have  remedied 
the  evil.  If  your  Excellencies  shall  not  be  of  the  same  sen 
timents,  they  submit  to  your  consideration  whether  the 
punishment  of  castration  may  not  be  altered  to  that  pro- 
posed by  the  Commons,  or  some  other  effectual  one  which 
may  occur  to  your  lordships'  consideration,  but  are  fully  con- 


320  APPENDIX, 

vinced  there  is  an  absolute  necessity  of  making  the  law 
against  uni^egistered  priests  and  friars  more  severe  than  it 
now  is. 

"  There  are  several  other  good  clauses  and  provisions  in 
this  bill,  of  which  the  nation  will  receive  great  benefit,  and 
which  are  very  needful  to  be  enacted  into  law. 

"  We  therefore  desire  your  Excellencies  will  be  pleased 
that  it  be  returned  in  form  under  the  Great  Seal. — We  are 
your  Excellencies'  most  humble  servants, 

''Bolton."     (Charles    Paulet,    Marquis   of  Win- 
chester, Duke  of  Bolton.) 
"  MiDDLETON."      Cane,    (Alan    Broderick,    Lord 

Middleton.) 
"  John  Meath."     (John  Evans,  Bishop  of  Meath.) 
"  John  Clogher."     (John  Sterne,  Bishop  of  Clo- 

gher.) 
"  Santry,"     (Sir  James  Barry,  Lord  Santry.) 
"  (Sir)  Oliver  St.  George. 
"  E.  Webster. 

"  B.  TiGHE. 

"  To  their  Excellencies  the  Lords  Justices  of  Great  Brit- 
ain, Whitehall. 

"  Under  Cover — To  Charles  Delafoy,  Secretary  to  their 
Excellencies  the  Lords  Justices  of  Great  Britain,  \Vhitehall." 

Now  for  Mr.  Froude's  treatment  of  this  event.  He  knew 
he  could  not  avoid  it,  or  ignore  it,  or  misstate  it,  as  he  has 
done  so  many  other  events.  For,  having  met  Mr.  Fronde 
shortly  afterwards,  making  his  searches  in  the  State  Paper 
Department,  at  Dublin  Castle,  I  thought  it  right  to  tell  him 
of  my  discovery.  But  he  was  already  aware,  so  he  told  me,  of 
the  fact,  having  seen  the  original  letter  in  the  Public  Becord 
Office,  London.  There  was  something,  however,  so  extra- 
ordinary in  the  man's  demeanor  that  I  had  my  misgivings 
that  he  intended  to  misdeal  with  the  transaction  in  some 
way,  so  I  published  it  in  the  Freeman's  Journal  of  the 
28th  April,  187L  I  confess  I  had  great  curiosity  to  see 
how  lie  would  treat  the  matter  in  these  circumstances.     In 


APPENDIX.  321 

"The  Englisli  in  Ireland  in  tlie  Eighteenth  Century,"  he 
gives  a  chapter  to  this  subject,  and  it  is  worth  a  longer  ex- 
position (may  I  not  say  exjjosure  ?)  than  your  limited  space 
can  grant  me.  Let  me  first  take  his  divisions  of  the  chapter. 
It  is  Book  iv.,  chapter  iv. : — 

"  Intended  severities  against  the  Irish  Priests — Fiction 
and  Fact — The  Registered  and  Unregistered  Clergy — Un- 
certain dealings  with  them  by  the  Government — Need  of 
more  systematic  methods — Alteration  of  the  heads  of  a  Bill 
by  the  Council- — Singular  character  of  that  alteration — The 
Bill  thrown  out  by  the  House  of  Lords — Further  eiforts  in 
the  Viceroyalty  of  the  Duke  of  Grafton — Postponement 
of  the  question  in  England." 

Let  it  be  remembered  that  I  had  bound  him  with  such 
strong  cords  by  publishing  the  entire  letter  beforehand  that 
there  was  no  possibility  of  his  misstating  the  terms  or  the 
scope  of  it ;  and  then  observe  the  writhings  and  twistings 
of  this  English  viper,  that,  nursed  in  his  youthful  sickness  by 
the  poor  peasantry  of  Mayo,  and  since  that  day  a  frequent 
visitor  of  Ireland,  seeks  to  spit  his  venom  against  us  at  home 
by  publishing  this  book,  and  then  immediately  rushes  to 
America  to  endeavor  to  instill  into  the  English  race  abroad 
the  same  hatred  Jie  and  his  colleagues  are  filled  with  at  home, 
because  we  will  not  be  their  slaves. 

"  In  the  midst  of  the  heat  and  dust  of  the  Wood  hurri- 
cane (Wood's  halfpence)  the  heads  of  a  bill — if  we  are  to 
believe  the  standard  Irish  historian  "  (says  Froude),  "  were 
introduced,  carried,  earnestly  recommended  to  the  Home 
Government,  of  so  extraordinary  a  nature  that,  were  the 
story  true  in  the  form  in  which  it  has  come  down  to  us,  the 
attempt  by  an  Englishman  to  understand  the  workings  of 
Irish  factions  might  well  be  abandoned  as  hopeless.  '  In  the 
year  1723,  &c.,'  says  Plowden,"  (and  then  he  gives  the  ex- 
tract I  have  already  given.)  "  A  statement  so  positively 
made,"  (he  continues,)  "  has  passed  into  the  region  of  ac- 
knowledged certainties.  It  has  been  beaten  into  the  metal 
of  the  historical  thoroughfare,  and,  being  unquestioned,  haa 


322  APPENDIX. 

been  moralized  over  by  repentant  Liberal  politicians  as  il- 
lustrating the  baneful  effects  of  Protestant  ascendancy." 

Any  one  would  suppose  from  this  opening  that  "  the  Irish 
historian  "  was  the  trickster  and  the  cheat,  and  not  the  English 
historian  the  fraudulent  knave.  For  it  is  nothing  but  knav- 
ery to  try  by  the  use  of  such  terms  to  make  the  careless 
reader  to  believe  beforehand  that  Plowden's  statement 
differs  as  much  as  "fiction"  does  from  "fact"  (according  to 
one  of  the  headings  in  the  table  of  this  chapter),  instead  of 
being  substantially  true,  though  not  in  form,  as  he  had  no 
means  of  access  to  the  original  and  authentic  documents. 
There  is  something  more  than  "  some  chrysalis  of  fact,"  as 
Mr.  Froude  calls  it,  underlying  Plowden's  statement. 
This  punishment,  this  shocking  outrage  upon  decency  and 
humanity,  was  actually  recommended  from  Ireland  to  the 
Government  in  England,  though  Plowden  did  not  know 
that  it  was  a  substitute  for  another  and  scarcely  less  inhu- 
man punishment,  the  branding  of  unregistered  priests  with  a 
large  «'  P  "  with  a  red-hot  iron  on  the  cheek. 

Mr.  Froude,  with  all  the  art  of  an  orator,  next  introduces 
the  priests,  and  divides  them  into  two  classes — the  registered 
and  the  unregistered  ; — 

"  The  registered,  for  the  most  part,  orderly,  and  well- 
disposed,  the  unregistered  being  the  Regulars,  the  Jesuits, 
the  priests  trained  in  Spain,  France,  and  Flanders.  These, 
he  continues,  fed  continually  on  the  recollection  of  their 
wrongs,  and  lived  in  constant  hope  of  aid  from  the  Catholic 
powers  to  root  out  the  Protestants  and  shake  off  the  yoke 
of  Great  Britain,  receiving  tlieir  instructions  from  Pome  or 
Flanders,  or  the  mock  court  of  the  Pretender.  They  were 
the  persistent  enemies  of  the  English  settlement,  the  recruit- 
ing sergeants,  who  gathered  the  thousands  of  eager  Irish 
youths  that  were  enlisted  annually  for  the  Catholic  armies, 
the  impassioned  feeders  of  the  dreams  which  were  nourished 
in  the  national  heart,  of  the  recovery  of  the  Irish  race,  the 
return  of  the  Stuarts,  and  the  expulsion  of  the  detested 
Saxon.     They   were   the   originators   of    all    the    political 


APPENDIX.  323 

troubles  which  contmiied  to  distract  Ireland.  In  Kerry, 
where  the  cause  needed  thoroughgoing  men,  the  registered 
priests  were  put  out  of  their  cures  as  too  soft  and  malleable, 
and  their  places  taken  by  others  of  stronger  national  type  " 
(observe  the  insult,  the  taunt  to  the  nation),  *'  who  were  the 
encouragers  of  the  hougher  and  the  ravisher,  the  smuggler 
and  the  Kapparee — whose  business  was  to  render  futile  the 
efforts  of  the  English  settlers  to  introduce  order,  and  enforce 
the  law.  If  English  authority  was  to  be  maintained,  it  was 
fair  and  reasonable  to  distinguish  between  the  registered 
and  unregistered  priests." 

The  purpose  of  all  this  rhetorical  abuse  of  the  unregis- 
tered clergy  is  as  a  preface  to  the  branding  bill  and  its 
shocking  substitute,  as  suggested  by  the  Lord  Lieutenant 
and  Privy  Council,  a  Castration  Act.  The  number  of  pre- 
lates, friars,  and  unregistered  priests  was  daily  growing 
larger.  There  was  no  sufficient  penalty  to  prevent  their  re- 
turning. A  Committee  of  the  House  of  Commons  accord- 
ingly di-ew  a  bill,  which  they  considered,  says  Mr.  Fronde, 
would  keep  such  persons  at  a  safe  distance.  And  among 
other  clauses  it  contained  a  provision,  "  that  every  unregis- 
tered priest  found  in  the  kingdom  after  the  1st  of  May, 
1720,  might"  (says  Mr.  Froude)  **be  branded  with  a  hot 
iron  in  the  cheek,  as  a  mark  by  which  he  might  be  identi- 
fied." He  does  not  say  (according  to  the  fact)  to  be  marked 
with  a  large  *'  P,"  made  with  a  red-hot  iron  on  the  cheek. 
Now,  hear  this  cynic  on  the  necessity  of  the  stronger  pen- 
alty. "  The  Council,"  says  Froude,  "  among  whom  was  the 
Lord  Lieutenant,  the  Chancellor,  and  tAvo  bishops,  consid- 
ered the  branding  both  too  mild,  and  that  it  would  fail  in 
its  effects.  The  hot  iron  had  been  already  tried,  he  says, 
for  the  Kapparees,  but  the  Eapparees  made  it  a  common 
practice  to  catch  and  brand  other  innocent  persons  to  destroy 
the  distinction.  These  four  or  five  noble  lords,  *'says 
Froude,  (as  if  they  were  not  the  Lord  Lieutenant  and  the 
Privy  Council,  the  government  in  a  great  measure  of  Ire- 


324  APPENDIX. 

land !)  "  did  certainly  recommend  as  a  substitute  for  the  iron 
a  penalty,  which  was  reported,  rightly  or  wrongly,  to  have 
been  used  in  Sweden  with  efiect  against  the  Jesuits."  And 
here  this  brutal  cynic  pretends  to  relieve  the  priests  of 
Ireland  from  its  being  supposed  that  this  treatment  was  for 
the  purpose  of  securing  their  chastity,  by  suggesting  that  this 
mutilation  proceeded  on  another  ground,  and  was  for  another 
end. 

But  let  us  have  done  with  the  disgusting  subject  and 
disgusting  man,  who  seems  to  be  as  lost  to  all  sense  of 
modesty  as  of  humanity.  He  it  is,  who,  in  an  article  in  the 
Review  he  edits,  in  describing  "A  Fortnight  in  Kerry" 
(where,  however,  he  spent  two  summers),  foully  and  inde- 
cently libelled  the  memory  of  O'Connell,  the  Liberator,  and 
was  then  surprised  to  find  that  the  people  of  Kerry  looked 
coldly  upon  him.  Does  he  take  us  for  dogs  ?  That  we  are 
not  men  ?  Or  else  that  we  are  sunk  so  low  as  not  to  dare 
to  resent  the  insults  any  Englishman  may  put  upon  us  ? 
And  this  libeller  of  our  name  and  nation,  of  all  things, 
indeed,  sacred  and  profane,  except  the  "  E-oyal  Irish " 
Sepoys,  and  the  Ulster  Janissaries,  talks  of  spending  his 
days  among  us !  Heaven  forbid !  Girls  of  Ireland,  remem- 
ber the  outspoken  approver  of  the  murder  of  your  poor 
tortured  sister  at  Drogheda  !  Mothers,  think  of  the 
children  used  by  the  English  as  shields  while  fighting  their 
way  up  the  stairs  of  the  church-towers  !  Ladies,  forget  not 
the  crowds  of  those  of  your  own  rank  slaughtered  in  cold 
blood  in  the  vaults  beneath  !  He  sanctions  it  all.  He  is 
guilty  of  it  all.  Make  the  country  too  hot  with  your  indig- 
nation to  hold  him.  Men  of  Ireland,  treat  him  not  to  the 
penalty  devised  against  your  clergy,  but  brand  him  with  the 
red-hot  iron  of  tongue  and  pen  on  one  cheek  with  a  large 
''  L  "  as  liar,  on  the  other,  with  an  "  S  "  as  slanderer  of  this 
nation. — Your  obedient  servant, 

John  P.  Prendergast; 


Date  Due 

i;;,T     . 



. 

f 

BOSTON  COLLEGE 


3  9031   01276430  4 


m^M:.M^':::m^mWx\ 


J?6^f 


BOSTON  COLLEGE  LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  HEIGHTS 
CHESTNUT  HILL,  MASS. 


Books  may  be  kept  for  two  weeks  unless  other- 
wise specified  by  the  Librarian.  ' 

Two  cents  a  day  is  charged   for  each  book  kept 
overtime. 

If  you    cannot    find   what    you   want,   ask    the 
Librarian  who  will  be  glad  to  help  you. 

The   borrower   is   responsible  for  books  drawn 
in  his  name  and  for  all  accruing  fines. 


